913

I was on a flight from YVR to AMS last year and towards the sixth hour I got up to use the washroom. I walk up and see that there is a bit of a line. So you know, I'm standing there twiddling my thumbs and this old woman in front of me (who was obviously a bit tipsy) starts a conversation with me. We're speaking until it's her time to enter the closet, she steps in, pokes her head out and says "I've had terrible diarrhea this entire trip" - she then smiles and goes in. I simply nodded my head up and down slowly with a smirk on my face and started looking around for another washroom

Post your awkward stories, I'm sure we'll all be glad to hear them.

AcnNWAPlatinum

I was flying EWR - MHT this summer,and seated next to me in F was an intoxicated man carrying an urn. I believe he'd taken advantage of the free F drinks on his previous flight. Anyway, he proceeded to explain that he was coming from the funeral of a good friend, and was bringing his friend with him in the urn.

He then tells me that his friend always loved cute blondes, and would I mind posing for a picture with the urn,since his friend would have "gotten a kick out of it". I politely declined, and he then proceeded to tell me I was rude and no fun.

Thank god it was a short flight.

jimbo99

Great first post by 913, welcome to FT!

My contribution is a sweet middled aged lady who sat in the aisle beside me, neatly arranged her stuff and made herself comfortable. She looked so pleased with herself and life in general. Blanket on lap, she said to me "This is really nice. If this is economy, I wonder what its like where the posh people sit."

Awkward? - because I knew we were in C. She'd simply misread her BP. I didn't say anything to her, but sure enough a "posh" chap turned up. Realising she was settled, he said "not to worry" and was about to occupy the vacant seat in front. But the attentive FA came over.. and her dream got terminated.

bensyd

Great post by the OP.

Usually when I'm standing waiting for the toilets I try and make friendly chit-chat with the FA's, for some reason never works on foreign airlines...they are so damn rude.

beergut

Years ago on BA in Y to Boston, an old Irish lady slagged the English off to me all the way cross the Atlantic. When deplaning she asked which part of Ireland I was from, nothing seemed to register when I told her I was English !

Kettering Northants QC

I recall sitting next to a little old lady on a Cathay P flight from HKG to LHR. I enquired whether she had been on holiday, and she told me "No, I'm a smuggler" - shocked I asked her more and she said "I've been smuggling bibles into China", she then proceeded to offer me a bible for my own use, and was VERY keen to show and tell me what the Good Lord had to say- a polite (or was that Pilate) refusal was proffered, my headphones went on and that was the last eye contact I made with that little old lady for the next 10 hours.

secretbunnyboy

"Oh, great, they're showing Everybody Loves Raymond!"

erdehoff

Kettering, the first time I read your post I thought you said she was smuggling babies!

Kagehitokiri

haha amusing first post ^

"awkward" makes me think of this excerpt from a Tucker Max story >

Tucker “I hope to god you are an Air Marshal, because if you aren’t, [motioning to his piece] this is going to be quite a flight.”
Guy “I’m not an Air Marshal.”
Tucker [long pause] “Uhhhh…”
Guy [he kinda laughs at me] “Don’t worry, I’m in the FBI. I’m off duty but we are required to carry our sidearm with us on planes whenever we fly.”

GregWTravels

I was sitting on a plane when a young kid got on the plane and sat in the middle seat in the row ahead of me. He was either drunk or stupid, not sure which, and very loud. He pulled out two magazines - a couple like "Jugs" or "Fat Neighbours" or something like that. There is a very quiet asian man sitting beside him by the window. The kid leans over to him, holds out one of the mags and says, "you wanna read this?" The Asian guy spent the entire rest of the flight leaning against the window, looking out. The kid was oblivious ot the Asian guys discomfort.

I posted this previously in the guys reading Playboy/Penthouse on plane.

Cromely

I was in F sitting next to a nervous flyer on a NW MSP-SEA flight.

She was in a chatty mood and asking questions about what I did, flying in general, the safey of aircraft and about miles and just misc things an infrequent flyer might ask about.

I asked her what she did for a living.

"I do miscellaneous personal services."

I said the only thing I could. "Oh."

It got quiet for a while.

htb

A friend of mine probably would be considered a seat-mate with an awkward comment. He was sitting next to a lady that was visibly afraid of flying and tried to make conversation with him.

...
HIM: You don't have to be afraid of flying. It's must safer than driving your car.
HER: Yes...
HIM: Just the other week a friend of mine was killed in his car.
HER: Oh my, what happened?
HIM: A plane dropped onto the car.
HER: <silence for the remainder of the flight>

HTB.

oldpenny16

'I didn't know you were THAT old'.

GoBucks

Once when I was flying with my husband the woman next to him told him she was on her way to a funeral. Apparently a family member had been mentally ill for some time and had committed suicide. Not something I'd share with a complete stranger if it were me.

altaskier

When I was 11, I went to Colorado to visit my sister. I rode with her boyfriend in his hippie van to get there, and took Greyhound back to Minnesota. When I boarded the bus in Denver and sat down, I saw a wild-eyed, bearded guy push people aside in the aisle before sitting down next to me. In a sort of slurred, excited voice he proceeded to explain to me how he had a legal right to kill the person who was blocking the aisle. After some minutes of nodding to his incoherent rambling (I'm sure with a look of wide-eyed fear in my face) so as to not get him further worked up by daring to disagree, I turned to the window and to my paperback book. Of course he kept on mumbling, and he periodically mumbled all the way from Denver to Joplin, Missouri. The last I saw of him was him wandering in the bus terminal there, talking animatedly with himself...