UA1851 IAH BWI 2005 0009 739 4B

I changed from 4A to B because of the fragile state of my
digestive system. There was this guy in 4A who seemed to get
somewhat agitated as soon as I sat down, though I had not
yet begun to fart. Presently he got up and took 4F, which I
figured was okay, as I've made that kind of mistake myself,

And then the real owner of 4F came in and evicted him,
whereupon this guy, a large guy, whacked me pretty hard with
his briefcase, not saying a word, and squeezed back past me
and returned to 4A. After the door was closed, he spied 1A
open and pushed past me rapidly, spilling his own drink on me,
and claimed that seat, all without a word. I wondered whether
I'd had unpleasant dealings with him in a previous lifetime.

Service on this flight was kind of neglectful, and after I
signaled to one attendant and asked for napkins to clean up this
guy's mess, which were supplied in short order, it was until
takeoff time before anyone came to pick up the wad of wet paper
that had sat for 10 minutes in full view on the tray, whereupon
the one who gave me the napkins in the first place (Asian girl);
the other two who ignored me were black, like the perp).

After takeoff I asked for red wine, which eventually came and
which I nursed for an hour. I put the empty glass on the tray
and waited, and waited. and waited. I saw other folks being
given refills, and still I waited. After another full half
hour, one of the FAs came over and asked if there was anything
I needed, so I ordered another glass of red, which came
relatively quickly. One oddity - the new wine tasted as if it
didn't have any alcohol, plus it gave me no physical or mental
indication that it did.

Another oddity - though this flight is blocked at only 9
minutes shorter than the previous one, catering was negligible,
and all I got in that department was an ounce of corn chips.

Toward the end of the flight, 1A started acting up, and shortly
after (too late to make any kind of difference), my service
started getting much better. I'm guessing that the guy had
complained about me for some reason, and later the crew figured
out that he was the loony one, or at least worse than me.

We landed several minutes early. The guy refused to get out of
his seat, no biggie, as he wasn't blocking anyone. I didn't
stick around to see what happened to him.

The Shipps were right on time. It was agreed as although
I'd been inadequately fed on that second flight, none of
us was hungry enough to justify a late-night field trip to
Honey Pig, so it was back home for conversation, a slice of
Braunschweiger, and a Turbo Dog.

2V 174 BWI NYP 1032 1335

So I got a few hours of shuteye, and then Dale and Gail took me
to BWI Airport Rail Station, where my train pulled up right on
time. The quiet car was pretty full, but I found a spot next to
a guy with headphones on, a good sign. Later on, we had a nice
little conversation (in whispers, the way you are supposed to
do on the quiet car). He was rendezvousing with his son, helping
him move from one of the defense contractors in Connecticut to
his new place near NASA Greenbelt.

We proceeded up the coast but hit a halt of almost an hour in
the middle of nowhere New Jersey. It was reported back to us that
there was a drawbridge issue. Obviously my seatmate wasn't going
to make his connection, so I had to remind him several times that
he was in the quiet car and shamed him into visiting the next car
over to make his phone calls; he was agreeable to that but kept
forgetting.

Our train pulled in an hour and change late, having had to pull
over for the Acela that was behind us and also for the regular
train behind that. We detrained onto a new New Jersey Transit
platform that had inadequate signage as to where to find the rest
of Penn Station.
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