The Skies Aren't Looking So Friendly

On Sunday, a woman on an American Airlines flight about to take off at Dallas airport had what everyone seems to be calling a “meltdown.” Unsurprisingly, there is video that has been posted all over the world showing this clearly upset woman saying she intended to get off the plane because the guy next to her was clearly “not real.”

The plane was delayed on its trip to Orlando by three hours.

Several weeks ago, I had talked about cognitive dissonance and, while it could be argued that the woman clearly had some problems, I’m of two minds on this. If I was on that plane, I would have been thoroughly angered by the delay. However, maybe she knew exactly what she was doing and the guy sitting next to her was truly the problem?

I say this because the last time I was on an airplane – coming back from, of all places, Orlando – I found myself in the middle seat of a jam-packed plane sitting next to two different kinds of people. On my left was a friendly fellow about my age who had a small dog in a kennel between his legs. On my left was a younger fellow who did nothing but play with three things – his handheld gaming device, his phone and his junk.

If you don’t know what I mean by his junk, you should probably just stop reading right now because you might be offended. If you find it humorous, I can let you know if you are sitting in close proximity to someone such as this young man, it is not funny at all. In fact, it is very distracting. So much so, I had to use my left hand as a blinder so that I could concentrate on my book and not see his gyrations.

I’m pretty sure what his problem was, and I did want to lean over and give him a little advice, “You know, some talcum powder goes a long way with that embarrassing itch.” Thing is, that while I’m pretty sure that he had some sort of hygiene problem – I’ve raised boys, I know – these days the best thing to say and do is nothing.

Mostly, though I didn’t want to engage in anything for fear that I might end up on some TikTok video being mocked by countless teenagers. I’ve seen these kids, they mess with us squares to see what kind of rise they can get out of us and post it online as entertainment.

When I watched this woman, I created my own background story for her. She’d been on her way to a Disney World destination wedding of a sorority sister she had known some years before. She’d probably started her trip in Seattle or Portland or Sacramento, a little nervous because she had put this whole trip on her credit card added to the stress of attending the wedding of the one sorority sister that no one ever figured would get married.

The plane was delayed in Portland and when she got to Dallas, she found she had missed her connecting flight. She was put on the stand-by list and missed two other flights to Orlando because she was so far down on this list. So, she hung out in the Dallas airport, which is like being a refugee from reality. She stopped into one of those sad little airport pubs to have a glass of wine and catch up on her texts and email, but there were three guys heading out to a conference who kept trying to buy her drinks so she had to go out and find a place to sit in the terminal.

But the terminal was packed with humanity because none of the planes were arriving or leaving on time, so the only place she could find was a broken chair next to a family with obnoxious children who were constantly begging for food. Occasionally, she would get up and go to the American Airlines desk, standing in line with other stranded passengers, and try to get an update. They couldn’t help her, though, and they said they would call her if something opened up.

Finally, after 10 hours in the Dallas airport, she got a seat in the middle of the row in the very back of a plane going to Orlando. She made it through the boarding process and made it to her seat only to find herself sitting next to someone who had weird written all over him and who started farting uncontrollably and making odd comments that in her state of mind all sounded like the beginning of a porno movie about the Mile High Club.

Finding that there was no solution to her problem – who would listen? – she cracked. The only way to fix her problem was to get off the damn plane. And she got off the damn plane. It should be noted that the comedian Carrot Top was on the plane and had a few mocking words about the woman in his own TikTok post. He doesn’t figure into the story other than to make it that much more surreal. (I almost ran over Carrot Top once. He walked out in front of me against the crossing signal. Don’t judge me for saving another human’s life just because he was Carrot Top.)

I suppose you think that I’d made up a pretty detailed story about this woman so you would have at least a little empathy for her. You would be right.

I have flown enough to know that I hate flying with a passion. That’s odd for me, because flying never used to bother me and usually I would enjoy it just fine. But now, the seats are too small and there are too many people touching me. Don’t misunderstand, I like the touch of a lover or a handshake from a friend, but I don’t care for strangers touching me or even being that close to me. A friend told me the other day that in all the years she’s known me, she had never seen me get sick.

I was into social distancing long before it was popular.

I suspect that I’m not the only one who occasionally feels overwhelmed by humanity’s presence. Years ago, my grandfather moved away from his home on a 10-acre lot in Corrales because there was getting to be too many people in the village. I laughed at him then, but have come to appreciate what he was on about. There are too many damn people in the world and even more so at the airport.

I understand we are social creatures who will naturally divide ourselves into tribes, or communities, or families, or whatever you want to call them. Sometimes, though, you just don’t want to deal with people.

So, I salute to woman in Dallas on Sunday who decided that she was getting off that plane. Although her methods were unorthodox and not something I would have ever done, she attained her goal.

Either that, or she is crazy. If you think for a minute, though, aren’t we all one fucked up trip from Portland to Orlando from going off the rails?