a travel anecdote

I'm back home. I was in Washington at 8am, flew out, took the bus and then the train, and drove up to my house at about a quarter to 1pm. A quick shower and zipped into work, smooth as clockwork. Amazing that we can fly like we do.

So the anecdote. Sometimes it can be a bit miserable flying. My last flight was one of those none-to-cool flying experiences. I love window seat, except for the fact that one must get the whole row of people up and out just so one can go to the bathroom. Instead of doing that during this past flight, I just waited 'til the end of the flight. The two people next to me were classically large and uncommunicative, and to make it worse, the one beside me had this raspy cough that erupted once in a while... the kind of cough that you can hear moisture in, and enough force to be clearly (to even the mildest imagination) hurling bacterium and viruses into the air. I held my breath for a while every time she coughed, imagining the "cloud" passing by me and settling on some other hapless traveller. I was happy to be freed from those confines upon arrival, and quickly found myself a bathroom.