The loud girls in the back

Average Blogger sounds off

This past weekend marked the first convocation of the Loud Girls in the Back. As the token out-of-towner, I flew in on United. I have nothing against United. Not nearly as much as I have against Northwest, (Or NWA, as they hilariously refer to themselves.) I harbor a certain amount of distaste for flying in general, but since I got married and generally have an acceptable companion on one side of me, I haven't had that many issues. And now we have a kid whose legs don't even reach the floor, which means Tha Mistah and I can squabble over the extra leg room for at least a couple more years.

But I was solo for this trip, and it took me back to the many single flights I've been subjected to. Somehow I always get some randomly annoying seatmate. The talker. The falls-asleep-and-falls-in-your-shoulder-lady-with-really-big-hair. The scarily large and sweaty fat person who has to put the arm rest up and doesn't understand why you are squicked out when their damp polyester touches you. My parents were on a flight once where a guy dropped dead between beverage service and landing. I'm sure my nicer twin was stuck in the next seat.

But until Friday, I'd been lucky enough to avoid The Stench. Oh, my god. It was vile! The guy next to me was so bad that the woman sitting behind me could smell it. You know that Seinfeld episode where Elaine gets the smell in her hair? I was SURE there was going to be tomato juice in my future. The best part was when the guy complained that the kid behind him was kicking his seat. I was so tempted to give the kid a dollar to keep it up so the guy would move. No such luck.

Oddly enough, the same guy was sitting next to me on the flight home. Someone must have said something to him, because he was bathed AND perfumed. Which once upon a time I would have said was almost as bad, but ... nope. Not even close.

posted by Editor's Note @ 6:16 PM