I usually consider a trip a success if I can make it from airport to airport without having to visit the airplane bathroom. I’m not sure what it is about those bathrooms but I would rather have my eyeballs float than to have to spend any time in them. My last trip, pre-Covid, came close to being the exception. The guy I was seated next to kept coughing. Nonstop. I didn’t think that he was ill, or that I was in any danger of catching whooping cough, or whatever. I did think that he was choking on his own cologne. It was so strong that I was having problems breathing. At any time, I expected the oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling to save us. It was so bad that I seriously considered hibernating in the lavatory! I wondered how long I could stay in there before the flight attendant thought that I’d died. I kept trying to hold my breath but that just didn’t work. Oh, well. The old guy that came out of the lav a few minutes before had been in there awhile, too. It was possible that a different kind of suffocating air quality existed in there. What could a girl do? I needed a box of tissues….

Staring straight ahead, I tried mouth breathing but I swear I could taste the cologne! I tried not to move so I wouldn’t stir things up but looking forward had its own set of problems. I was sitting in the third row back but I could see four balding heads. What are the odds of being blinded on a flight by beams of light being reflected off shiny bald heads? The view out the window was magnificent but I couldn’t spend a lot of time looking because that put my nose in direct contact with the visible waves of cologne. As the sunlight streamed into the window, I could actually see streaks in the air. They were not particles of dust. They had to be cologne. I’m relieved that this situation is rare. Sometimes, a few steps beyond normal are a few steps too many!