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Southwest is quickly becoming the go-to airline for celebrity excitement at 30,000 feet. Just days after a flight attendant tried out her one-woman show, "Everything Kenny Chesney Wanted to Know About Sex and I Obligingly Demonstrated," to a captive, and captivated, audience of Southwest passengers, a Defamer operative sends in this report of a living, breathing Desperate Housewife rendered even more desperate by being forced into riding rat class on a Kansas City-bound flight, only to soon find herself the star of a very real disaster-in-the-sky adventure:

On my way to Kansas City [on Jan. 26th] on a Southwest flight (3:35 LAX) and who was on our plane? Marcia Cross and an agenty type. Southwest has no first class....Ms. Cross flew coach (but it is the only straight through flight to the god-forsaken flattest spot on earth). She got "special" boarding privileges, i.e., boarded first. And for the next 3 hours the entire plane traipsed back and forth to the lav in the front of the plane to sneak a peek at the Desperate Housewife.

Fast forward to today and I'm on my way home from the world's most boring meeting and of course, who is on the 1:20 flight back to LA, but Marcia and her agenty guy of course. Same scenario as yesterday except this time, as we're about to taxi out of the gate, in a scene right out of a bad Hollywood script, a fellow passenger starts hysterically screaming for help. Flight attendants start running, passengers all pop out of their seats, a very cute young doctor passenger runs back to this woman who has apparently had a seizure. But wait?! Who ELSE runs to the aid of the passenger and her freaked out companion (who is still screaming for help)? Marcia of course! She runs from the safety of her front row seat, to the back of the plane, where the chaos is unfolding. The entire plane was flummoxed. Did she USED to be a doctor? Did she play one on TV? No. It was just a very concerned celebrity, hoping to reach out and hold the hand of the companion (who by now is more hysterical than the woman who had the unexpected seizure.) Oh the big hearts of the little screen's stars. How kind of her to risk the stares to hold the hand of the sick and insane. (I mean the companion was REALLY freaked!) Eventually she made her way back to her seat — sans applause from the plane for either her OR the really cute young doctor and they got the 2 women off the plane and back to LA we came.

Obviously, our operative wasn't a Melrose Place fan, as Cross of course did play a doctor on the series, albeit a sociopathic one who probably wouldn't have rushed to the aid of a seizure victim or their panicky friend. And while we're certain her motives were entirely altruistic, we can't help but wonder if Cross' "agenty type" companion didn't perhaps have a hand in encouraging the actress' involvement, cannily thinking ahead towards securing her a sizable "as herself" role in the CBS movie reenacting the events of the ill-fated flight.