One could keep a tally of flight experiences. Make two columns.

On one side write: "Great experiences where the crew and flight attendants were spiffy."

On the other side write: "Travel misery where any minute you could go bonkers and take off your pants."

Then, under each column, jot down those experiences that would fit under each. Geoff Vuleta does a similar activity in his article, "Tired and Impatient. Keep Your Pants On." By the end I was laughing. Vuleta travels often and has seen it all.

From the women whose baby threw up on the both of them, but the attendant would not move the cart in order to let the woman pass by so she could get to the bathroom to clean up the mess-- to the airline personnel who bought pizza for delayed passengers, he has an eye for what makes for misery, a bit of grace, and the absurd.

The part that made me laugh out loud was when Vuleta recounted how on one flight he was so flustered that he forgot where he was. When he took off his sports coat, he also took off his pants, neatly folded them, and put them in the overhead bin before starting to head down the aisle to claim his seat. It gave his traveling companion some comic relief.

Filed under: Business, Stories, Airlines