I used to travel a lot. And I mean a lot a lot. I was traveling a third of the year. Sometimes for work. Sometimes for vacation. Much of the time for the charity I volunteered with. Now-a-days, I don't travel much at all. A few times a year. And while I miss seeing new places and meeting new people and all that, I don't really miss the travel part of travel. It was a difficult thing... being away from friends and family, living out of suitcases, and spending so much time trapped on planes and stuck in airports. But it was my life at the time and I tried to make the best of it.

Oh. Another difficult thing? More often than you'd ever think, it was my fellow travelers.

And I've seen it all.

Most of the time, the reason there's a problem is because the traveler in question is drunk or high and unable to handle the amount of alcohol and/or drugs they have in their system.

Situations like this one (the ride to the police station at the end is CLASSIC)...

When I first saw this video, it was a "reacts" video and they didn't tell you where it was happening. As the madness unfolded, I was like... "I wonder what airport this is at?" And then when they are dragging her off the plane and I can see the concourse better, I was all "Ooh! It's Tampa! That's such a nice airport!" and then I'm all "Yep. Yep. Florida... this makes total sense now!"

In all my decades of constant travel, I've only had direct conflict with another traveler twice.

The first was when somebody was in my seat and wouldn't even entertain the idea that he was wrong and he started getting verbally abusive. A flight attendant showed up and asked me for my ticket. Then asked him for his ticket. He was wrong. He had to move while mumbling about thinking he was on a different flight. The end.

The second was more irritating.

I got on the plane, found my seat, and started to put my carry-on bag in the overhead. From behind me I heard "STOP! DON'T DO THAT!!" I turned around and a woman was leaping from her seat. "MY JACKET IS UP THERE AND I DON'T WANT YOU WRINKLING IT." And I was like okay. Then I backed up so she could move her jacket. But that's not what she did. She was looking for a different place for me to put my bag! Once I understood what was happening, I said "Um. The overhead is not a coat closet, that's where bags go." and she came unglued. She was berating me because SHE GOT THERE FIRST! and I DON'T GET TO TALK TO HER LIKE THAT!

So here comes the flight attendant who explains to her that the overhead storage is for bags, and she is not happy.

Eventually a compromise is reached. The rude woman turns her suitcase sideways and puts her folded jacket on top of it. Which makes her unhappy because it's going to get wrinkled being folded.

You'd think this would have been the end of it.

BUT NOOOOOOOO.

She was sitting across the aisle from me and decided to keep going off about me, but was smart enough to not direct her comments to me. Which is why I put my headphones on the minute we left the runway.

And when we landed?

That's when she decided it was safe to direct her comments to me. And the more I yawned and pretended that she didn't exist, the more upset she got with me. I most definitely didn't want her behind me, so I was sure to wait until she had gotten up and got her stuff before I got up.

Behind her.

At which time I grabbed a hunk of the fabric from the bottom of her jacket she was holding over her arm and twisted the ever-loving shit out of it.

She must have felt something happening, because she turned around and gave me the stank-eye, but she didn't realize what had actually happened.

I really, really wish that I could have been there when she saw the nice wrinkles at the bottom of her jacket.

Childish? Yes. But she deserved it. Had she just been a decent person and asked if I could watch for her jacket, I would have gladly done my best to do exactly that. But she was an entitled beyotch who thought it was her personal plane and that she had the right to unload on me for daring to defy her, even though I was just trying to put my bag in the overhead.

Sorry I don't have a better travel conflict story to share. You'd think that I would, given the odds.

But I do have plenty of stories about weird behavior, violent outbursts, crazy happenings, and other travel-related madness that I wasn't directly involved in. I also have a story about an oven catching on fire in the galley of a flight I was on.

But I'm tired and want to go to bed.