There are so many stories about travel.

Friend Ricky Tims mentioned yesterday that he was on a plane flight with a woman with a large B.O. problem.

Yes, it happens.

It bought to mind a trip I took last year from New Zealand to Sydney, then on to Adelaide.

I bought a cheap airfare to save the organisers of the event money. (I normally travel first class) I found I was sitting by the window in a three seat row. There was a rather overflowing lady in the aisle seat. I asked if I could get into the window seat and she looked at me as if I had asked her  to strip naked. “No, ma’am, I just need to get into the window seat”.

She told me to climb over her. So I did, none too gently. There was a seat between us and in a very affected voice she kept saying “I hope no one sits in that seat” I hoped so too. Rude lady, but secretly I wished she had to sit next to someone as rude as she was.

I was beginning to think that she was going to have her free seat, when just before the doors were shut a huge young man in a sleeveless shirt that showed his tattooed body to effect, arrived at our row and told the rude lady that the middle seat was his.

Hah, I knew she would have to move, it was impossible for him to squeeze pass her like I did. So a dance of bodies occurred and the young man wedged himself between us. I almost reeled from his strong body odour and I thought  “whoops this is going to be an interesting 4 hours” He was sweating profusely… and began chatting to me, I turned to look at him and I realised that he was terrified of the situation he was in. Not the fact that he was squeezed between two middle-aged ladies, but he was terrified of being in the plane. As we took off, he began to shake, and I grabbed his hand and held it for almost all of the way to Australia. I chatted to him to try to calm him down. He was a demolition expert and was traveling to a town close to where I lived but he professed  his fear of flying and I understood just why he had a problem with body odour.

Just before we landed he invited me to spent the wait time in Sydney with the friends that had come to meet him. I declined and mentioned I had an appointment.  The group of friends that came to meet him appeared to be the local bikie group, and as I came down  the stairs from the aircraft I was introduced to each one in turn and hugged to their leather jackets.

I didn’t sit with him on the way to Adelaide and he was behind me, so I was anxious as to how he was coping with his stress. Seems he found some other person to help him. As my luggage was coming off the turntable, he ran up to me, arms outstretched and then grabbed my husband in a huge bear hug and said. “You have an awesome wife” Keith almost fell over, but after I related the story on the way home he sort of understood.

So the moral of the story is, you just shouldn’t judge. You just never know the whole story.