re: Airport Madness......Weirdest thing you've ever seen at the airport/while flying

I saw Herschel Walker in one of the DC airports last October.

Don't travel often so that is about as exciting as it gets for me.

A couple months ago I was on a flight from DFW to New York. I was in the aisle seat and the guy sitting next to me was wearing this huge trenchcoat. For the first 30 minutes of the flight, he had his head in his lap. The rest of the time he stared straight ahead not breaking his glance once. He had his hands in his pockets the entire time. Very creepy.

I used to fly a lot in China in the 1980's.

Once my flight was oversold so they took off with passengers sitting in folding chairs in the center aisle.

Once I tried to check into a flight at a really small airport and asked why the flight number was crossed off on a big chalk board. The guy at the desk made a big falling gesture with his hand and said "yesterday" in Chinese. The previous flight had crashed and there was no replacement aircraft, so we ended up traveling by road.

Another:

The two nicest (most helpful) guys I ever met in airports?

A German soldier, carrying a machine gun in Frankfurt about 3:00 am one night, when I was lost between terminals.

A Mexican (Federale) guy with a machine gun in Mexico City when they let me out at the wrong terminal (about a half mile it seemed from my gate) one afternoon.

My recommendation? If you need help in a foreign airport. find a guy carrying a machine gun. They evidently are always nice guys.

I forgot the funniest one (though not funny at the time): Flew to Nigeria (an aviation hellhole if there ever was one). We are out on the runway and smoke comes into the cabin. We taxi back but they would not let us off the plane because they did not want another "aviation incident" reported.

Finally, everyone raised enough hell that they let us off the plane.

You definitely do not want to fly to Nigeria unless you have no choice.

In chicago years back we had to wait for like an hour while they sprayed water on the engines to melt the ice....i figured we would crash halfway back to Louisiana when the water froze again lol


flying to disney world next friday...will post if something crazy happens

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I got seated by a double breasted blond haired smoke show yesterday.

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If it was anyone but you I would question this phrase.

Flying once from Jackson to Monroe to DFW to Denver. Maybe 20+ years back.

Terry Bradshaw and the Monday night football team gets onto the plane in Monroe. We are going to Denver and they are too. Terry is in first class and the rest of the guys are in coach. He is the only guy in first, so as soon as the seatbelt lights are turned off, Terry is back in coach, "Working the crowd". He stops to shake hands with ma and the guy I am traveling with. then he turns to talk to the guys across the isle from us. I look down and Terry is wearing one of those black plastic Kmart digital watches you could buy at the register for $10.00. All it had was a 1/4 by 3/4 inch digital readout with the time in black on a gray screen.

We get to Denver and are waiting (forever) for our luggage. Terry asks what we are there for and I say "a business meeting and Golf". Terry says they are there "for Golf and then a business meeting". The luggage stuff finally starts coming out the chute and onto the conveyor. Of course, my clubs come off first. Terry gets ripped off mad (joking on his part) that I had business before golf and my clubs came off before his, when he had golf first.

For whatever reason, his clubs were taking forever to come off as were the rest of our bags. As we stood side by side waiting, Terry told me that if his clubs were lost, he'd give me $500 for mine. I told him they were worth more than that. He about died laughing and said evidently he was out of luck because that was all the cash he had on him.

As I understand, that is the way he is all the time.

Flying from Louisiana to go skiing at Mardi Gras. Before takeoff, while everyone is settling in, a well-dressed middle-aged woman starts having a hot flash and goes seat to seat asking everyone if they have a shirt that they can give her so she can take off the heavy turtleneck sweater she is wearing. She is flipping out, grasping at the collar, etc. She spots a group of college guys who've clearly been in town for Mardi Gras, one of whom is wearing a short sleeved t-shirt over a long-sleeved one. She points to him and says "you are wearing two shirts--can I have your t-shirt?" He looks at her like she is bat-shite crazy and says no.

Lady is about to become completely unraveled when a woman in a sweater set offers her the outer cardigan...still a sweater but much lighter weight and no turtleneck. Lady accepts and proceeds to strip down right there in the middle of the aisle. Also, the sweater she put on was just an outer sweater with no buttons, so it just hung open for the whole flight.