Whether Maygan Sensenberger was upset over the lack of resources available to attend to her husband's ailing health during a flight or threw a hissy fit because she didn't want to visit his family in Saskatchewan is neither here nor there.

There are witness accounts supporting both versions of events but it's not what went on during the flight that's piqued people's interest.

Had Sen. Rod Zimmer and his wife been an average couple, the news would have been forgotten about; the real issue fueling watercooler discussions is that the greying Zimmer, at 69, is perceived as waaay too old for 23-year-old Sensenberger.

There's a bit of a gotcha factor in the public reaction, suggesting anyone old enough to be his wife's grandfather should have known better. When you marry a child, you have to expect the temper tantrums that go along with one, after all.

For normally staid Canada, this now very public May to December romance is a train wreck hard to resist ogling.

Photos from Sensenberger's Facebook page, which were recently taken down, whipped around the Internet showing the happy couple on their wedding day last year, locking lips in another; she, a young attractive blonde, he looking like her grandpa.

Sure, we expect that kind of behaviour from Playboy founder Hugh Heffner but a Canadian senator with a respected history as a cabinet minister, former university professor, fundraiser for the Liberal party, businessman and philanthropist? What was he thinking?

It's an obvious leap to conclude what they provide to each other - he's old and rich, she's young and attractive . . . it's not for everyone but certainly appeals to some.

There was the 62-year-old Woody Allen marrying 27-year-old Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his former girlfriend Mia Farrow; Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith settling in at age 26 with 89-year-old oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall; and former prime minister Pierre Trudeau tying the knot with a 22-year-old Margaret Sinclair when he was 30 years her senior.

It's not simply the current chasm in Sensenberger and Zimmer's age gap that shocks, but that they'd been dating for years, according to her grandmother.

On the surface, how a 23-year-old could hold the attention of such a worldly man beyond a couple dates is a mystery.

But scarcely reported was a revealing statement Zimmer made to the Senate in 2011 - he'd been diagnosed with cancer seven years earlier and given a slim chance of living beyond two years.

With a prognosis like that, who can blame the guy for wanting to act like a teenager in his final days? He has nothing to lose and certainly doesn't owe society anything.

At the time, Zimmer suggested "a positive attitude generates energy and adrenalin and fights off disease and stress . . . So as much as possible, honourable senators, take stress out of your life."

Perhaps by marrying his spring flower, Zimmer had hoped to infuse some lightness into his final days and simply didn't give a damn about the furrowed brows around him.

The real story isn't the plane incident or their age gap but why society is willing to seize on the perceived worst in people instead of looking for the brighter side, like Zimmer has chosen to do.

tgilchrist@kamloopsnews.ca