And here I thought I'd make it through the whole week without cursing.

So, when we left off, we'd made it to Guatemala after having a plane in Houston delayed 2 hours for us. On the tarmac. (I should tell you now that I'm totally okay with everything that happened, because if I wasn't, I'd have no choice but to jump off a bridge, and I'm too busy for that right now. So don't feel bad, but feel free to be appalled and laugh with me.)

So, when it came time for us to leave Guatemala on the following Saturday, I must have unknowingly put on a sign that said "Hey, come to me and be rude. Please. I beg you."

'Cause that's what happened.

J and I made it through everything security-wise together and were the first to reach the gate for Houston. At this point, a woman in a red shirt walked up to me and said...

"Oh good! I remember you from the plane in Houston. We won't have to wait for you this time!"

Nice. Wow. I sincerely think from her attempt at a peppy tone that she was trying to be nice, but she fell a little short on the execution. And that was just the first incident. This next one was a doozy. It deserves a letter. A letter I’ve spent quite some time composing.

Dear sir, stupid cretin, socially-inept idiot, #@&%@$$, occupant of 13F,

You are a jackass. The biggest I've ever met. Ever. And I've met a lot of people, friend. You have no etiquette whatsoever, and most certainly no texting etiquette. You see, I saw the text you thought you so clandestinely sent to the guy 3 rows up. And it made me cry. Actual tears.

There are very few people in the universe that have ever made me cry. I am not a crier. But you, occupant of 13E, have done so. Let me take a moment to tell you that if anywhere from two to five of the people on that plane with our group had seen me crying and knew why I was crying...your butt would have been thrown off the plane immediately, I can almost guarantee it. As it was, if we hadn't been on an international flight in the time of hightened security and everybody having to be on our best behaviors, I can't say I wouldn't have rolled up the Sky Mall magazine and beaten you senseless with it. You can thank Osama for that one buddy.

So, while you were trying (and failing) to discreetly plaster yourself to the window, in case my disease was as contagious as the leprosy to which you I'm sure likened it in your head, I was thinking my own thoughts. I was thinking that if the cabin lost pressure and the oxygen masks came down, I would not be putting mine on first and then helping you. I would be putting mine on and then ripping yours out of the cieling and mouthing "Oh, I'm sorry...did you need oxygen? What? Can't breathe?!" I was also thinking that in the unlikely event the plane does go down, I'm shoving you out of the gaping hole in the plane first. A sort of sacrifice to the plane crash gods on whatever remote purgatory island we ended up. In the event that you lived, I was most certainly not going to let Jack do anything to prolong your life.

I guessed from your conversations with the people around you that you were on a mission of some sorts, possibly medical. Either way, I read all of your following texts, including the one about going to Sunday School the next morning, and I gotta tell you...you may go to church but you certainly don't know Jesus. 'Cause if you did, you'd have thought twice before sending that text, and by the way, you're damn right you're going to hell.

Love and kisses (with a few curse words and backslaps for good measure),

The occupant of 13E.

Wow. Bet you're wondering what he did to piss me off that badly, huh? Let me tell you the real story.

So, I get on the plane, and there's much confusion over seats as two people have tickets with one seat on it, and then there's a family with a 3 year old that got all spread out in three different middle seats. We all rearranged ourselves to let the family sit together, which is how I ended up sitting away from my group, next to this man who looked to me like he was a native Guatemalan. I bent down to get something out of my backpack, and saw his phone. He was starting a text that said "Dude..." I kept reading because I was surprised to discover he was an American. Here's the text I read:

"Dude. Seriously. I know I may go to hell for saying this, but did you see the size of the person that sat down next to me."

Ya'll, I couldn't make that up. That's what the text said. He was next to the window, so I was the person next to him. He was talking about me.

Now, everyone that heard this said they would have confronted him or gotten his name or said this or said that. Trust me, people, you wouldn't have. As evidenced above, I'd be the first one to whip out the vicious rhetoric on someone, but when you read something like that and realize it's about you, it's a cold, sharp slap to the face. You lose ability to speak, much less to go all sardonic on his butt. You simply turn your head away and cry quietly as the plane takes off. You watch him squirm and try very hard not to touch you in any way, lest he be infected with whatever disease you have.

Then, you start thinking sardonically and viciously and rhetorically, knowing you have a blog at home, and all 12 people that read it are gonna hear about this guy. The one silver lining was when Mr. Dressed-in-workout-gear-for-an-international-flight-and-can't-hide-his-text-messages sprinted up the stairs instead of taking the escalator after the flight, one of the other passengers said "Showoff!!" Okay, it wasn't that silver, but it did make me feel a bit better.

Now that this incident has passed, I'm over it and ready to move on to the next challenge...

4th grade...