OWJ's Trip from Smell
 

October 28th started out like any Friday--you know, slap the alarm clock 3 times, go to work, sneak peeks at Fodors FFRR, rush to the airport and go out of town for the weekend...

Airport check in was a breeze and thanks to my ever so early husband, we were at Atlanta Hartsfield with plenty of time to drink. After indulging in a brew or two, we wobbled to our gate. Boarding passes had us in Zone 9--what the heck is up w/that nonsense? Ever since Delta started the zone boarding neither I nor the gate agents have seen any improvement in the boarding process...Anyway, I digress.

The weather, we were told, was supposed to be crystal clear up in Newark but for some stupid reason we had to sit on the tarmac in ATL for a good--or not so good--hour before we took off. Sitting in tight quarters is bad enough but add a little pungency to the mix, and you've guessed, it becomes the TRIP FROM SMELL!

OWJ2 and I felt like we were in that Seinfeld episode with the valet w/the bad BO that infected Jerry's car. Somewhere close by was the most heinous body odor I can honestly say I've ever experienced. My eyes immediately started to water, hair wilted and we started to check our clothes. Where was it coming from?? First suspect was the male flight attendant because it was when he walked by that we first noticed it…Then we started to blame the guy sitting next to OWJ2. Picture this: brawny guy with a multitude of tattoos, scraggly hair in a ponytail wearing a tank top going to NY whose temps were in the low 50s, no less! I backed into the window as much as I could, never escaping the smell.

At some point we noticed a cute toddler and her parents sitting in front of us. Every time the father lifted his daughter, the smell would hit us like a 2-by-4 to the side of the head. It was him!! Omigawd, omigawd. We prayed he would keep his armpits locked but he refused. Here we are sitting in steerage with a man who smells like livestock and we can’t do a darn thing about it.

But wait, it gets better. Remember the cute little girl? Well, we’re circling around Richmond, VA at this point and the child starts to cry. Not a little whimper but a full-blown wail. This causes the child to get so upset that she begins to vomit, right there in the row in front of us. First the stinky dad, then the ear piercing wails to be followed by the lovely scent of stomach bile emitting from a two year old. As Roseanne Rosannadanna would’ve said, “I thawt I was gonna die!” Quite honestly, it would’ve been a pretty good idea, especially that my husband had now formed a magazine into a snorkel, desperately seeking fresh air and embarrassing me.

We were the lucky ones. The girl in the window seat next to the stinky family had nowhere to go and had her face pushed so far into the window that I thought for sure that I would see a permanent imprint of her forehead on the pane. Oh, and did we mention that upon descent our seatmate, Tanktopman decided he needed a little freshening up so out came the deodorant stick? It was the first time in memory that I ever saw a stranger apply deodorant right there in the aisle.

Never have two people been so happy to land in Newark, a place many consider the armpit of New Jersey….But that’s not all….

While walking from the gate, thanking the almighty above, we once again were blindsided by the smell of all smells. A$$ fumes? Were we walking by the restroom? Was a dirty diaper left around? Did someone open a window? Nooo. It was Tanktopman’s father who broke the unholy wind.

Other than the gaseous elderly woman in the Suffern, NY Walgreen’s, it was a pretty uneventful trip visiting my family who puts the fun in dysfunctional 

"my husband had now formed a magazine into a snorkel, desperately seeking fresh air and embarrassing me." - LOL OWJ I'm trying to be sympathetic while tears of laughter are running donw... you still had time and strength to be embarrassed?? SuperWoman!!

Reminds me of a flight my daughter and I took from Portland Maine to Newark. In the waiting area before boarding, I was watching some g-men types with 3 hancuffed fellas (I think they were illegal migrant workers). Anyway lo and behold when we got on the rather small plane (prop), the prisoners were seated right in front of us and no, they had not showered in a good long time. My daughter who was 7 at the time kept saying "Mommy I don't like that smell. Can't you make it go away?" It was hideous.

Then the prop began hitting turbulance and I cried the rest of the way to NJ but that is another story...

Sounds like a great trip though

Well, of course my friend OWJ would have such a stinky flight, lol! Glad you had a great trip visiting your fun family :D

Omigod !this is so funny, especially since it happened to someone else LOL

Honey, I am sorry this happened to you !
Actually, I have a list of those that we can wish it on, but I am sorry it happened to you..
but thank you for making me laugh.

Oh OWJ! Too bad tanktopman didn't think to share his deodorant with the smelly dad!!

It's good we can laugh at such experiences after the fact.

I think I woulda been the one with the magazine snorkle!

Glad your trip was otherwise a good one!

Your post is so funny. No matter where our seats on Delta are, we always seem to be in zone 9.

Is zone 9 sort of like Area 51?? :)

I think tanktopman mustof thought he was the source of the smell and decided more deodorant would help. LOL

Poor you! Loooooooong flight!

OMG, I have tears rolling down my face I am laughing so hard!!! Maybe tanktopman thought he was the source of the smell, thus the deoderant, lol!

If Tanktopman thought he was the source of the problem, would 'ya think he'd secretly apply his antiperspirant in the restroom?? I would *never* be caught masking my scent public!

The culprit was definately Stinky Dad--there was no doubt about that as we deplaned. Maybe that's what made his little girl sick in the first place cuz it almost made OWJ2 and I ill too! :p

OWJ, I've fallen and I can't get up. I am still on the floor laughing!! This is the funniest trip report I've ever read!!

Perhaps the child was screaming, pooping, and throwing up because she was so disgusted by her smelly dad? If you had to live with that guy, wouldn't you do the same? I think it borders on child abuse when a man with lethal fumes coming from his armpits picks up his child and exposes her to that.

I have only been on one trip from smell, and that was on my first trip to Europe. I was traveling with a group of teens from my school and they flew us on Air India from JFK/LHR. I could tell that a lot of people on that flight had been traveling long distances so they weren't too crisp. I also think that Air India did not do a good job of cleaning and deodorizing the plane inbetween flights. Even the magazine snorkel trick wouldn't have helped because there were so many culprits on that plane. That trip was many, many years ago, but based on what I've read on this board, Air India has not improved over time.

Thanks again for the best laugh of the day. :-)

OH my gosh, sounds like my seat mate on my last flight to London and I mean it was almost WAS my LAST flight!!!! I had "Biker Boy" going back home to see his mum. Whew!!!!! I walked around a LOT. :( Thanks for the laugh, it's always so good when it's someone else. (:

Oh, OWJ, I can totally sympathize. You've brought back a very bad memory from earlier this year - ironically, also on a flight from Atlanta. I managed to get on as a standby on an earlier flight back to Chicago, but in so doing I had to give up my nice Economy Plus seat for a window seat way in the back of a 757. Being a standby, I was one of the last to board. The man in the aisle seat of my row stood up to let me in and whispered, "This is going to be a rough one." Say, what? It didn't take long to figure out what he meant ... a woman in the row in front of us had not bathed in what must have been eons. I was so happy that I'd thrown a tube of very fragrant coconut-lime hand lotion from Bath & Body Works into my computer bag that morning. I've never applied so much lotion to my hands in a two-hour period as I did during that flight.

Maybe Tanktopman knew his dad's...ummm...habits....and was nervous about the car ride from the airport.

Thank you for the laugh, OWJ! This <i>almost</i> happened to me on an 11 hour flight, but we managed to fib about a problem and have our seatmate relocated without embarassing anyone. I apologize to whoever had to sit beside her, lol.

I seem to recall an episode of &quot;Airline&quot; maybe last year some time, when a passenger was noted by other passengers to be, shall we say, somewhat aromatic while they were waiting in the departure lounge. The flight attendant actually approached the woman and asked her if she could please use some deodorant or she wouldn't be able to get on the flight. The woman was mildly shocked but the problem was traced to what she was wearing - she'd been travelling for several days and hadn't changed her clothes. She was able to make herself acceptable enough to get on the plane. Can you imagine being in that situation and then having it observed by millions of TV viewers?

OWJ, you've given me something else to worry about now when we travel back to Toronto in December. The only smell issue we had as we drove across the country was just as we got on to the Coquihalla Highway, on our way through BC. It was the second-last day of the trip and the cat had behaved herself reasonably well, but she chose that moment to use the litterbox. I don't think she had used it at all in the car, at least for that purpose, through the entire trip. That was the only stretch of road in over 3000 miles where there is NO place to pull over for 60 kilometres. No rest area, no pullout places, nothing. You just have to keep going. There's a toll-booth at the end of it and we were worried about asphyxiating the toll collector when we opened the window. Fortunately just before the toll-booth we saw a sign for a rest area just off the highway. We took advantage of that and got rid of the offending item. (Not the cat.) ((@)) :&amp; :&amp;

Meesthare, did it not occur to you that if the toll booth attendant had passed out, you could have been saved from paying the toll? Why do you think it only happened on that stretch of road? :-? The cat was thinking ahead....

LOL, OWJ, sorry dear one. But knowing how absolutely clean you and dear OWJ2 are I can only imagine your distress on this horrible flight! Don't mean to laugh but what are friends for?
The rest of the trip went fine I assume.

Glad you survived the aromatic trauma, OWJ. That story was a hoot!

OWJ, this was a hoot report! I can't imagine the Southwest FA who had to tell someone they stunk so badly they couldn't fly...We had a stinky co-worker once and we waited until she was off one day and someone crawled under her desk and put one of those stick-up air fresheners under her desk and then another behind some handbooks on her desk. It helped to mask the odor a bit. Maybe we should all carry a small bottle of Febreeze in our carry ons and spritz the stinkers!

You're right, P_M, the cat had probably looked at the map and figured out the best place to play her trump card - she got even with us for making her sit in a crate in the back of a car for 9 days. :)