Have you showered today?

As I was sitting on my second flight of the day headed home, I was tired and hoping for no one to be in the middle seat.

You see, I'm a creature of habit. I always sit on the same side of the plane. I always sit in a window seat. I always sit between rows 5-8. It just is the way it works.

The first flight of the day was short - New Orleans to Houston. I had a nice neighbor in the aisle seat and the middle seat was open. The flight wasn't full, so I was getting excited that I might have "room". Then this guy comes and wants to sit between me and my new friend. This woman on the aisle seat was from Nashville. She was in New Orleans on vacation with her son and husband when her best friend's mom passed away. So she left her family on vacation and was flying to Phoenix to be with her friend for the funeral. She was really sweet.
So we had this new friend in between us and he was weird!

Towards the end of the flight, he got even stranger doing weird things with his nose and face trying to get his ears to pop. His arms were shaved too - it kind of freaked me out, I'll be honest.
When we got off the plane in Houston, my Nashville friend and I commented on how odd he was and went our separate ways until our next flight.
The coolest thing that I learned from my Nashville friend was that her business has gone up 50% in this economy - isn't that crazy! She has a business that helps special needs children with tutoring. She said that people become more concerned about their family and their education when the economy is in the crapper.

I, being a creature of habit, sat in the same place. She came on board and sat in the same spot.
The flight attendants made it pretty clear that there were going to be no empty seats.
....Maybe I need to take a time out and explain Southwest Airlines for those that don't fly my beloved airline.... At Southwest, you are not given an assigned seat. So when you come on the plane, you get to pick where you want to sit.

So the seats are starting to fill and I'm thinking I don't want another crazy sitting between me and my Nashville friend. A nice looking man makes eye contact and wants to know if "our" middle seat is available. And here is the question I ask him....

Did you take a shower today?

It is a simple question. It isn't a short flight from Houston to Phoenix. I want to be sure that the person sitting next to me for almost 3 hours doesn't stink! Anyway the flight attendant and my Nashville friend thought this was pretty funny, so I thought I would share.
It turns out that our new friend in the middle seat was a pretty cool guy. He is from Sydney Australia. He has a son that lives in Chicago (so we got to talk about Chicago, as he used to live there as well). His son is going to come visit him this next week for Easter - he comes to visit every holiday - he is 10 years old. I was able to talk to him a little bit about the Mesa LDS temple since he has a house in Mesa. I suggested that he take his son to go and see the Easter Pageant at the temple. When we were done at baggage claim, I had had a chance to look up the website with the information for the pageant and gave it to him on the back of one of my cards.
He has lived in this country for 15 years, 10 of which have been in Phoenix. He is in the golf industry.
This was the coolest thing I learned from him:
He rode 430 miles on his bike from Phoenix to San Diego. This is a ride that is done to raise money for the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund. He himself raised $155,000. Pretty awesome.

And by the way, he had taken a shower and he did smell good. :)