“Skywaitress! Excuse me, but there’s an odor?!”

N.B. While what I am about to share with you is true, and told in the first person, I am not the protagonist of this tale. I simply feel my own colleague’s experience is better told in the first person.

Compared to most, I guess, I travel more by plane than the average American. This past year, I’ve left the country twice, both on pleasure trips, and I’ve had the fortune of traveling for my job, to various cities for conferences. While I used to relish in all travel, of late, I have developed a more home-body attitude. In part, of course, for experiences like this one.
I was in Boston, on the east coast, for a conference, and wasn’t looking forward at all to the trip back west to California. If I were blessed, the plane would take off on time, make great time going west, and be half-full. I was instead damned, with a late plane, fully stuffed with passengers, among them a high school-age soccer team. I always choose the window, and was seated first in my row, upon our late embarkation. Yet, I got two Asian teens in my row, complete with the requisite team jerseys. I knew they were a part of this troupe headed back home. Many of these kids were loud, and were shouting to one another as the sky-waitress took forever to seal the plane shut. If it wasn’t an airport catastrophe that made us late, then it was getting all these loud, spirited kids quiet and seated in the right places. I thought then I was fortunate, at least, as the two sitting next to me only conversed with one another, and in reasonable tones.
I ached to put in my headphones, and dial up my iPod to some spirited performances of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. Instead, I babysat myself with the airline’s own magazine, that had already served as a coffee coaster for another passenger, and for another, as entertainment. An article had been removed, and the soduku puzzles were complete. As one skywaitress passed, I asked for a pillow, which I shamelessly buried my head into, thereafter, pressed against the window. I was quickly falling into a state of pure agony.
To be blunt, something stunk. It was a human stink, for sure, someone on this plane smelled, it was getting stronger, and we hadn’t yet even taken off. Thinking I might smell the air around me in an informal self-test to ascertain whether it was getting better or worse, I turned and looked down at the guy next to me. He pulled out a small white box, covered in some sort of psuedo-leather material, from his bag, stowed underneath the seat in front of him. It was decorated with gold leaf decorations, with a dragon. I relished in this object, I wondered what was inside, and no doubt it was at this time when I must have first thought of telling my friend about the box this boy had.
He opened it up, the other boy next to him unaware, with his head cocked back in a napping position. Inside was a plastic liner, and filled nearly to the brim of this box, was a white, powdery substance. “White powder?” I mouthed to myself, as I secretly watched him manage this box in his hand, exploring its interior. To my surprise, he plunged his fingers in the powder, and placed several pinches-worth on his tongue. As he replaced the top of the box, I realized at once two profound things. First, this powder had a strong, acrid smell. Was it sulfur based? And two, this boy stunk. He didn’t smell like his powder, mind you, but like stinky boy.
Perhaps a stinky boy who had shat his pants.
I turned back quickly, ready to wretch, and once again buried my face, nose first, into the airline-provided pillow. The sky-waitress had returned, telling me to put my seat up all the way, as we’d be taking off. As the plane did finally reach the runway and accelerate upwards, I never looked once. I just knew that sweaty stinky teenagers were around me, making me sick, and one had just ingested some odd white powder.
I couldn’t hold back. I forcefully ripped my head away from its sanctuary and filter, and looked at the guy next to me. He wasn’t sweaty. But he did stink. Didn’t his friend notice? Both were unaware of my stares, heads cocked back, and away from me, with eyes closed. I took my opportunity to move the air vents in their direction. Why? I was trying to push the vile smell away from me.
An hour into the flight, the guy on the aisle was getting cold. He woke up, shivered, and cut-off the vent. Damn him and his stinky friend. When he found himself re-positioned, I once again turned on the vent, and pointed it in his direction. These nozzles were pushing air full force at him and his friend, away from me. Just as I was about satisfied with the airflow situation, the sky-waitress came by with drinks.
Aisle guy complained to her. “This plane is cold! I can’t turn this vent off.” She smiled at him, and twisted it off. “Just twist!” she said, and moved on to another row. Bitch. Both were now awake, talking, vents off, and stinking up the plane like 3-week old garbage.
I’m sorry, yes, he’s a human being. But a stinky one. I was getting sick. Once they finished their Cokes, I pushed my way out without excuse, and headed towards the lavatories. Ah! “Clean air!” I said aloud, as I let myself into one toilet, and shortly thereafter, splashed my face with water.
When I came back, I made a deal to sit in the aisle. Stinky was now 2 seats away. But he also buried his stinky hair and face into my pillow. I guess I didn’t need it back. Then he reached again for his bag, and after moving it, took out the mysterious white powder in a box, again. He hate more powder, and washed it down with melted ice from his drink.
“What is that?!” I heard screaming in my head. I never found out.
I could still smell the stench. It was bad. It was nastier than you might imagine, waves of hit hitting you, hot, and each time, slightly spicier and nastier. Soon the two were nodding off, and I returned to my fine-tuning of the vents. It helped, I wagered, but not by much. I accidently hit the sky-waitress switch in moving the vents. She came over, and I turned it off.
“Sir, did you need a blanket?” “No,” I said, but then quickly thought aloud: “What I need… is a new seat.” “A new seat? What’s wrong with the one you have, sir?” “Well,” I stammered, “Could I speak to you privately?” I said as I looked back upon the two guys.
I got out of my seat, and walked down a couple rows with the sky-waitress evil-eyeing me. “What sir?” she asked, impatient. She didn’t fly no friendly skies.
“The guy sitting in this row… he stinks!”
“Stinks?” she said, eyeing me with even more suspicion.
“I’m getting sick, listen… Barbara. That’s your name? The guy sitting next to me… or the one that’s now against the window… has shat something super nasty in here, and I am about to wretch-up alla dramatico into one of your so-called air sick bags!” Before I could continue, she said:
“Well, no one would want to sit next to someone who… stinks. Please, this is your assigned seat, make do.” She pushed past me (agh!) and looked back to survey my reaction. She shrugged her shoulders at me, as if to say “Sit down, tough luck, you suck.” I never got moved, I held my nose a lot, finally doing it obnoxiously when turning next to the guy who now occupied the stinky seat. He gave no sign that he too recognized the great stink of 2007.
As I deplaned in San Francisco, I had convinced myself that was the worst airplane stink incident known to man. My wife swore she could smell stink too, as I retold her about my experience, on the way home. The question remains: was it that powder that made him stink so? And how did his friend stand it?