Our plane was delayed for over two hours. When we finally board the plane, we find a middle-aged woman sitting in my seat. Jenny politely says, "Ma'am, I think you are in one of our seats". The woman extends her arm towards us and sticks out her index finger. Apparently she's too busy to respond to Jenny because she's checking her "very important" voice messages.
Several minutes later while we're standing there waiting for her to finish checking her voice messages, she replies, "This is my seat now." Jenny looks at me with one of her 'what the fuck' expressions. I sit down in the seat that the woman is supposed to be sitting in and Jenny sits in between me and the middle-aged woman.
After this event, the woman is so rude to the flight attendant. Every time he passes, she flings up one of her arms and yells, "HEADPHONES!". Of course, she could have gotten them when she boarded the plane like everyone else, but she must not have seen the huge sign. When the flight attendant gives her a pair of headphones, she proceeds to fall asleep (i.e., she never even uses them!).
Less than halfway through the flight, there is an overwhelming, pungent smell which permeates throughout the plane. Jenny leans over, "Is that leftovers or puke?" I tell her I don't know and wave the flight attendent over. He says that nobody has thrown up so it must be leftover parm pizza from one of the restaurants at the airport.
So we go back to watching tv, but the stench continues as strong as ever.
When the plane lands the lights come on and we take off our headphones. Soon Jenny nudges me. I look over to see the bitchy woman covered in puke! She is using her jacket to throw up in. It's honestly the grossest thing I've ever seen. And then, I start to laugh (I always laugh at the most inappropriate moments).
We immediately call the flight attendant over. When he sees her, he's shocked, which made the situation all the more hysterical. He goes to the back, gets paper towels and plastic bags, comes back and practically chucks the towels and bags at her.
Jenny leans over to tell me that as soon as the plane stops run off as fast as I can. As we flee the scene, we hear the flight attendant telling the story to the pilot and crew. As he sees us, he asks if we're alright and says that, at least, this is something we can write in our blog.
Jenny and I laughed all the way to baggage claim. Other people on the flight were talking about the horrible smell...some even spotted where it originated from. The woman, however, was nowhere to be found.
We talked about it in the car as we drove to Jenny's place in upstate NY. Why didn't the woman ask us to move so she could go to the restroom to throw up or at least to clean herself up afterwards? Was she drunk? If so, why didn't we smell the alcohol? Also, why didn't she use the puke bags as opposed to her jacket?
I laughed more the next couple of days than I had for the entire year.
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I am a private pilot and I used to have a 1953 Piper SuperCub. A SuperCub is a very small plane made from cloth stretched over a metal frame which makes it very light. It is the world's best bush plane because it is small, light and rugged and can fly VERY slow. It has one seat in front where the pilot sits and one seat in back where the passenger sits. It had a top speed of about 135 mph if I pointed it straight at the ground (which I frequently did) and otherwise cruised at between 35 mph and 105 mph. The clamshell doors folded up against the wing and down against the fusilage and it was great fun to fly with the doors open and lots of wind blowing through the cabin. I LOVED my plane! She was called Myrtle the Turtle.
Whenever I took up passengers I always jokingly gave them the official "this is your Captain Speaking" speech. I explained that if they needed to puke the proper procedure was to open the collar of their shirt and spew on the inside of their shirt rather than all over the cabin. I then showed them the toothbrush that was reserved for the purpose of scrubbing the cockpit by those who violated the spewing rule. Fortunately nobody ever spewed.
But my worst flight was the day the engine quit. My plane was normally very loud and it was strange to suddenly be gliding along and slowly descending with just the sound of the wind. I did all the emergency stuff and called in a MAY-DAY and was talking on the radio to my original flight instructor from 15 years earlier as I prepared for my emergency landing. It was a very nice warm early February day. I made a pretty good touchdown and landing into about 8" of heavy wet sticky snow. The slower the plane went the harder it was to control. Finally when I was just about stopped, the wheels just stopped moving through the snow but the plane kept on going. It slowly dug its nose into the snow and finally was standing straight up. It was like a carnival ride that you weren't quite sure if it was going to flop back down on its wheels or go on over the top. It just stood there for a few seconds and then slowly flopped over on its back. The only thing that hurt about the whole thing was when I released my shoulder harness and landed on my head on the steel frame. I cried when I crawled out and saw my beloved plane on its back with its wheels sticking up in the air. It cost me about $30,000 and almost a year to get it back in the air. But they say any landing you walk away from is a good landing.
Thanks for sharing. I can't believe that after that experience, you're still flying!
I sold my plane when I sent my daughter to college. It was her education or my expensive toy.
Flying is one of those things you should do often or not at all. Rusty pilots are dangerous. So I am not currently an active pilot. I might take it up again one of these days because I loved flying. On the other hand, avgas costs over $5 a gallon now and even a little plane like my SuperCub burns 7 to 9 gallons per hour.
I'm wondering if maybe she was too embarassed to ask you to move since she fought so hard to keep the seat to begin with? I don't know - I am just trying to figure out some sort of logical explanation for her behavior - but I am not so sure this woman was logical.
Yes, I am still trying to explain it myself.
I would have insisted that she move, and interrupted her. If you reserved the seat, you reserved the seat. I just don't accept it when people act like that.
I love abortion. Read more here:
http://progressiveu.org/044921-i-love-abortion-even-if-it-murder