Olfactory Terrorist Have Won

The Story of Delta Flight 1759

As I mentioned, a couple of weeks ago I flew to Norfolk, Virginia to visit family. I thought it only right to share the "highlight" of my air-travel weekend with the group. Good times...

On my return trip, I just happened to have two old, old dudes in the row with me on a packed late night flight from Atlanta to Birmingham. These were good people, so we easily made the requisite, initial airplane small talk.

They were just getting back from an Alaskan cruise with their Vestavia Hills Methodist church group. (the king of Old People vacations) They were so elderly and decrepit that when I asked them "what cruise line did y'all go with?" they couldn't recall....but that's OK. They were really damn old.

Anyway, while we were still sitting on the tarmac in Atlanta, where the air is still sufficiently stagnant and those little screwy vents are operating at roughly 12% capacity, one of the old men proceeds to shit himself right damn next to me. Maybe not literally, but I wouldn't put it past him.

It lingered for an eternity. It BURNED the nostrils.

So, the old dudes just continue their mindless conversation as if a paper mill didn't just explode on their orthopedic shoes. Meanwhile, I'm dying inside; suffering in that airplane air with a solitary tear streaming down my face, but shit! I suffered in silence.

I remembered my "Band of Brothers" and I knew that these men, the greatest generation, had suffered far worse, for far longer than I...So I gave them my respect and held my ground. I sat beside them and took that shit like a man.

Can't say the same for that punk, Oak Mountain High School kid on his way back from Europe with his classmates. He was the funny guy. The douche in high school who's really an annoying skinny, floppy haired punk, but fancies himself a lady's-man/comedian. He just wouldn't shut up about "WHAT'S THAT SMELL?" "SALLY, DID YOU PUT YOUR FEET ON MY PILLOW?" "WHO THE HELL FARTED?" "DAMN, THAT'S GROSS!!!"

I wanted to punch him in his skinny punk nose, but I couldn't embarrass my boys...whichever one it may have been.

That kid knows nothing of honor. I fear for America.



That day, on that plane...I earned it