...on my nose.

Have you ever wanted to say that to a stinky seat companion? Ever get stuck with a REALLY BAD one? Perfume? B.O.? Something unidentifiable?

I barely missed that once. Hubby and I were on a WN flight, and I was using my laptop at an outlet in the gate area. All of a sudden, I was enclosed by an invisible cloud of tobacco smell. It was so bad that for a moment I thought someone had lit up. But no, a guy was standing next to me whose clothes reeked so badly that all I can figure is he purposely dried them in a chamber of cigarette smoke so he could make it through the no-smoking flight simply by sniffing his jacket. It was so bad that I actually had to move because I started sneezing.

This being WN, I was in mortal terror that he'd sit next to us, since we take a window and a middle. I am normally mannerly, but on this flight I rudely placed my carry-on onto the aisle seat and fiddled around in it till Mr. Tobacco Road went past (which I would have been able to tell, even with my eyes closed). I pity the poor slob who got stuck with him as a seat companion, unless of course it was a fellow smoker who might appreciate the smoke-less buzz achieved by inhaling his aroma.

I saw another stinky person on WN, but at the time I was safely seated. They had apparently asked him to board last and directed him into the front lav with a fresh t-shirt and little kit of toiletries (they must keep 'em on hand for personal hygiene "incidents"). The guy looked like he had pulled clothes out of a rag bag and had rolled in a mud puddle before the flight. In the new shirt, he looked somewhat better, but I still pitied the person he ended up plopping down next to somewhere in the back of the plane (I was smugly situated in the bulkhead).