The 6 hour flight to Hong Kong was a red eye, followed by a 5 hour layover in Hong Kong. By an odd fortune of circumstances, my dad had booked a room in the airport hotel for him to use before realizing he would not be flying out of Hong Kong with me. Still the room was booked, and so I checked in and took a shower and a quick nap. My parents tried to reach me about seven times in this span, but since I neither checked my email nor activated my Hong Kong phone their efforts were in vain. They even called the hotel front desk, where apparently I left an impression because the concierge did remember me and my funny Cantonese. Anyways, next up was a 14 hour flight to Chicago.
On a large United flight, I sat window on an exit row with a set of 4 bathrooms next to our row. The flight proceeded without incident for about 8 hours, although I had a lot on my mind, trying to absorb my recent trip to India, contemplate my uncertain future in the states, and deal with my long and exhausting trip and my newly single status. Dazing in and out of dreamland, I was suddenly jerked awake by the man sitting next to me standing up and hurriedly bolting down the plane. Confused, I asked the girl sitting in the aisle seat what the commotion was. In a cynical flat tone, she told me that someone had apparently taken a crap on the ground between the bathrooms. I had to chuckle at her absurd statement. "I'm sorry?" I leaned over to look at the ground between the bathrooms and holy shit, there was a pile of you-know-what right there on the airplane carpet. I asked her who did it, but of course no one spends a flight looking at the bathrooms, even if someone does happen to squat down and drop one in plain view. Her best answer was that she thought she had seen an old guy behaving strangely around the bathrooms. Well I figured that the stewardesses would immediately scoop up this situation, but no one seemed to be making a big stink out of this, as if fecal disasters are commonplace on intercontinental flights. I stood up and called a stewardess over and told her that "someone has pooped on the floor." The young flight attendant doesn't seem to understand what I'm saying, and comes to me and asks me to repeat myself. "Someone took a shit on the floor," I repeat and point to the puddle of mud that is still very much in the way of bathroom goers. Well, now she gets the idea and loses her shit, no pun intended, and runs for help. Sigh. Well the smell was getting pretty unbearable right now, and if plan #1 of getting assistance wasn't working, I guess I'd have to go with #2 and run away.
However it was dark in the airplane cabin and as I mentioned, the crud was quite an obstacle towards lavatory use, perhaps mentally as well as physically. Amazingly the news, and smell, had still not spread to the entire plane and people were still using the bathroom with impunity. I tried to warn as many people as I could, but unfortunately some people had a knack for stepping right in deep shit and, *icky moment*, spreading it around the floor. I warned a Chinese girl just too late. "Be careful! 小心！ 你的鞋！Your shoes!" She had already stepped in it, but she took a look at her shoes and screamed the sort of scream you only hear in Godzilla movies.
Finally the flight attendants got their shit together and sprung into action. They perhaps overreacted, closing off the section (sealing access to all four bathrooms) and bleaching the entire floor. A kind flight attendant, who told me she had worked in the industry for over 20 years and never seen something like this, took me away from my seat at ground zero and into an unoccupied First Class seat, and told me to "keep quiet." Apparently she didn't want people to think that if someone defecated near their seat, they could get an automatic upgrade. Well I moved all my stuff up a couple dozen rows and never moved back. Spending six hours in first class, which is about six hours more than my mom has ever spent in first class, was not a bad consolation prize. The movie selection was incredible and the seat could recline into a bed, and I helped myself to a very much needed beer.
I spent some time pondering whether there was something poetic, ironic or punny about getting dumped and then dumped on, or if this was just the worst thing ever. My conclusion? When you're sitting in first class, who gives a ****?
