death of a travel bug

traveling has never been a chore for me - even these days when you don't get snacks, the overhead bins are full, and everything's more expensive, i still enjoy traveling. i still find it kind of fun to go to the airport, do some people watching, and head to the great unknown..... but once in a while, the travel experience gets well, compromised.....

on our way back home from vacation, we were starting to get comfortable on our flight, when I smelled a tinge of..... fart. about 2 seconds after my keen warning system kicked in, my nose went into full alert and I began to sense that this was no small wisp of random poop floating around, this was a full-blown invasion cloud of mustard gas fart. well, soon i was surrounded by a greenish-yellow cloud of stink. after trying to hold my breath until i was almost blind, i came out of hiding and took a sample sniff- nope, still there. but since i had held my breath for so long, i couldn't help but take a few deep breaths.... i've smelled my fair share of poop, and this was a stinker. where was this cloud coming from? i had to wait to see which direction it was moving to pinpoint the source.... i concluded that the guilty party was one of the two mild-mannered ladies in front of our aisle. i looked to my left and eva was almost comatose. i was thinking of initiating cpr but i checked her carotid and she had a pulse so i figured she would come out of her fart induced stupor...

anyways, after about another 10 seconds, i beagn to smell the recycled airplane cabin air - never smelled better to me..... i began to tell eva audibly that "they NEED to go do THAT in the bathroom", hoping that the culprit would get the hint and go do their business. now that i think about it, if they dropped that smokescreeen in the enclosed bathroom, the next unluckly fellow to walk into that lavatory might never return to their seat. it would be like the killer smoke in the movie Backdraft.

well, we tried to have some fun with the whole thing but the stink but a damper on our putting a happy face on this episode.... until the second invasion rolled in. Like a thick fog, the mustard gas attack inflitrated our row.... at this point i was trying to get out of my seat - but i was pretty much incapacitated ..... it was so dense that i think my white shirt started to change colors and look green to me.

this happened two more times during our flight - ok, i understand that everyone has accidents once in a while. maybe you got a condition- that's cool - i'm a sympathetic guy. maybe you didn't need those extra beans in your burrito, maybe you shouldn't of had that extra glass of warm milk, could of done with less mayo in that potato salad- we all make bad choices sometimes. but 4 times? that's not cool, man. you drop multiple mushroom clouds in an enclosed space with nowhere to go, we're going to have a problem. that means you got some serious junk in the trunk and you need to clear that out before you get on a plane. if you develop that on a plane, you got to do your business in the airplane bathroom and stay there until it's safe for others to follow you... maybe they should create some airplane etiquette and announce it with the seat belt/lifevest schpeel.

well, i'm officially a jaded traveler. what did it? was it the long lines at check-in? lost baggage? high prices? rude travelers and airline staff? the lack of snacks? delays on the runway? no, the enemy came from within.... the colon of a middle aged repeat flatulent assassin. RIP my travel bug.