Drunk on a Plane

I’m sitting in the last row on my flight. Aisle seat.

Huge guy comes up to me and tells me he has the middle seat. I’m thinking, “Nightmare” but I smile and get up to let him in.

He tells me his brother is coming too, so he’ll take his brother’s window seat and put his brother in the middle.

The brother shows up… and he’s drunk. Really, stinky drunk.

I get up to let him in, and he tells me to go ahead and scoot in. I just started laughing, “Oh no, I paid for this seat, I like this seat, you go ahead and take your seat.” He said, “Oh no I insist.” I laughed again and said, “insist all you want, but that is your seat.” He sat and started grumbling.

So I sat and started reading my book. He’s chatting me up. I’m reading. He’s chatting. He says to me, “How’s your book?” and I reply, “I have no idea, every time I try to read this guy keeps talking to me,” “Really?” he asks – like he doesn’t realize I mean him, “Yeah, I’m not getting anything read,” “Oh okay, I’ll let you read then.”

A minute later he reaches over and starts trying to turn the page in my book, “I already read that page, turn the page.”

“No you didn’t,” I replied, “that page has words, and you don’t know how to read words," and he starts snorting. Then I said, “didn’t you bring anything to amuse yourself with?” and his brother said, “No he was hoping to have someone to snuggle with” at which point the drunk looks at me and smiles and makes his eyebrows bounce. I said, “Well then, you two go ahead and cuddle, it won’t bother me a bit.” The brother starts laughing and the drunk starts sulking.

Just then a member of the ground crew who checked us in came up. He told the drunk to come with him. The drunk was escorted off the plane. The brother inquired as to why, was told it was illegal to fly while intoxicated and that he had been removed, and so the brother exited as well.

Then a woman came and asked if she could have the window seat. I let her in. She told me a story about a drunk guy boarding the airplane next to her that was shoving people and reeked of liquor and was loud and disorderly and how she reported him to the flight attendants. I told her she was in his seat. She thought that was pretty funny.

The flight attendants asked me all kinds of questions and wanted a recap of the experience. They were kind of surprised that I hadn’t complained. I said, “It never occurred to me that I could complain about a drunk guy who talked too much and wanted to snuggle - especially since I could keep him at bay.” Of course, I was thrilled that he was removed – he was stinky and obnoxious, and who knows what would have happened once we hit full altitude – would he have become violent, puked, passed out, or just kept turning the pages in my book? But like I said, where else in the world can a woman summon someone and say “this man is drunk and is paying too much unwanted attention to me – make him go away”? Maybe next time I'll remember that I can say "hey, this guy is drunk, take him away!" but more than likely I'll just keep being me, giving better than I get and being mildly amused at everything other than the smell of it.