Airplane

Archival post (originally written by Steve on 6/05/2003)


You know how you always hear stories about the airplane ride from H E double hockeysticks? I always thought such talk was embellishment on the part of the storyteller; mostly hype with a bit of truth it was based upon. I can't express how wrong I was.

As I boarded the small aircraft destined to transport me home from the artic hinterland that is D.C., I observed with great interest a young gentleman sitting in the aisle seat next to my seat. Fair enough. I make the appropriate hand gesture, and he lets me in.

At this point, I still think everything is cool.

About thirty seconds after I get as comfortable as you can in coach airplane seats (which is to say really freaking uncomfortable), he starts with the questions in an extremely thick French accent.
"Are you going to Jacksonveel?" Yeah pal, that's where the plane is headed.
Right about now I notice that the air emitting from his mouth is nothing shy of rancid. I'm not just talking about your typical case of "bad breath," I'm talking about him spewing the most fearsome odor from his oral cavity that I've ever had that displeasure to smell. Here come more questions.
"How many keelometers is eet to Jacksonveel?" I don't know man, I guess about a million. This is America, and we don't deal well with the metric system. We tried, we're stupid, we can't.
At this point, every time he turns his head to ask me a question I'm actually turning my head the opposite direction to aviod the veritable flames leaping forth from his lips. Then I'll pause for a moment to let the air dissipate a bit, then I'll turn back to answer his question. At one point he questioned this method and I had to tell him I was hard of hearing so I needed to turn my head to listen to him.

"How much does eet cost to make a call?"

Thirty-five cents.

Now the questions start rolling out faster than I can turn my head back and forth.

"Do I have to dial 011 first? How long can I talk? What is this dime? Where is San Jose blvd? What time is eet? Where can I make poopie?"

Somewhere amidst this verbal barrage I begin to detect a different odor, one that is assuredly not eminating from his mouth. "No no," I think to myself, "pleae Lord let this be anything but what I think it is."

Well you can pretty much guess that it was what I feared it was. And you can pretty much guess that what I feared it was, was the absolute worst cast of BO in the history of mankind, to this day.

Let me tell you this is one freaking stench, and it's getting worse by the minute, and I'm only ten minutes into a two hour flight. Joy.

This stench was unlike any other aroma I've ever detected. It was overwhelming, everywhere I tried to put my nose was contamined with his fragrance. I got the idea to turn on the little air conditioning thing. While this seems like a good idea, it actually only served to worsen my dilemma. His reek had floated all the way up there, and so now I had this BO, new BO if you will, being push directly inside my nostrils.

At some point, I passed out and the flight attendant woke me up after everyone else had debaorded. The air hadn't yet cleared though, so I made world record time getting off that plane into fresh, fresh airspace.