Last night I flew home from Boston and I am still in shock that a person in my immediate area was able to fart the entire flight.  How is that humanly possible?  Yes, the intestine is incredibly long but even still, how is there that much gas?  It was a 6 hour flight!  Thank goodness I had a scarf to silently retch into while I dreaded the next wave of flatulence.  No surprise here but I was surrounded by men and it could have been any one of them or maybe they were in sync and alternating.  Is it like a group of women ending up on the same menstrual cycle because they spend so much time together?  I know I have talked about this before but what happened to the glory days of flying when people were on their best behavior and didn’t feel the need to take off their shoes?  I guess the lower the price points go, the higher the levels of human disgustingness become.  As I sit here and write this I feel like I can still smell it.  Is it possible to have PTSD from a flight?  And it isn’t like I was flying Spirit or some other budget airline.  I was on Alaska which is pretty middle of the road.  Planes really are the buses of the sky – same lack of awareness, cleanliness and who cares attitude.

On my flight out to Boston I discovered that my seat belt was caked with chocolate.  It was like someone stuffed a piece of it into the buckle and then opened and closed it repeatedly to get the best possible coverage.  It also had nuts so that was a good addition.  Fortunately I fly with disenfectant wipes so I was able to attack it before it got all over me.  I like to carry wipes at all times so I can pretend that I am getting rid of germs.  I know it is just a placebo but there is something cathartic about wiping down as much surface area as I can before sitting in the same spot for multiple hours.  Although, there is taking it too far.  The man on the aisle in my row had a mask on which I totally get and he had disinfectant wipes which I can totally understand but he used them on his face.  ON HIS FACE!  I don’t usually play the role of people police but I had to this time.  What if he wiped close to his eyes and went blind?  He already had hearing aids so losing another one of his senses would have been horrible.  To be honest, I am not actually sure he heard what I was saying as he looked at me blankly and said he didn’t wipe his eyes.  At least I tried, right?  My good deed for the day-ish.  He was also one of those people who just moves his legs to the side when you need to get up from your seat.  I appreciate that you think I am thin enough to slide by you but not even an underdeveloped 4th grader could make it past.  There is also someone in between us who is a bit of an obstacle unless I climb on the arm rests and jump over both of you.  I have been known to do that but only on really long flights and when I am at the point of peeing my pants.  I know it isn’t culturally acceptable to do that, peeing my pants or jumping over someone, and I am sure @passengershaming has something to say about it and has probably documented it as well.  Another thing I struggle with is putting my bags under the seat in front of me.  Once the ground was wet and something seeped through the bottom of my carry-on.  I am not sure what it was and I definitely don’t want to think about it too much.  It was under a first class seat (I was in economy just behind) so I am going to hope that it was water or something else other than a bodily fluid.

And let’s not forget about the truly crazy people on airplanes.  There was one on my last flight who was either drunk or on drugs and definitely had a multiplicity of other issues.  She was the epitome of what I might turn into if I continue down the anti-social road I am currently following.  She was traveling with her cat, her cane, multiple jackets and a fog-horn of a voice.  She would not stop talking and I felt sorry for the flight attendants and the people on either side of her.  In this situation, if someone had said to me, “You have the choice of sitting next to this woman or sitting in the lavatory for the entire flight,” I probably would have had a hard time deciding.  All I could think about was the poor cat.  He probably would have preferred the lavatory too.  She was one of those people who doesn’t realize there are other people on the plane.  Our flight was delayed and when we landed people were racing to make connections.  There was an announcement asking for those whose final destination was Seattle to please stay seated and let the others go first.  Not this lady.  She had places to go and people to see.  The girl sitting next to me made the mistake of laughing and Crazy Pants stared her down and said, “Oh you think this is funny do you?  It isn’t funny,” which also slowed down the deplaning more.  It was no surprise that when I got down the jetway she was getting comfortable in a wheelchair and bossing the poor attendant around like it was her hobby.  It is at times like this that I need to remember that traveling broadens your horizons but also reminds you of how not to act in public…ever.