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On a flight from Denver to Hartford, my seatmate and I began to chat after I joked that I would fight him for the one working outlet between us. He eventually confided that he worked at a lumber yard that was haunted by a nineteenth-century-looking man in a duster coat and cowboy hat who appeared at dawn by the uncut tree trunks. He also said that a girl's poltergeist was wreaking havoc on his kitchen cabinets. It was a fascinating conversation, and made the time go by very quickly.

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Okay, see, I love airplane conversations. This guy sounds great.

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Not my personal experience, but I once worked at an insurance event with a man who had flown from the east coast to California in order to attend. On his flight there, he was seated in the front of the plane & was approached by a flight attendant who explained that they had a passenger in the rear of the plane who was being a bit unruly & asked if he, being a big, strong, strapping man, would mind moving to sit next to said passenger in the hopes that she would settle down in his presence. He moved to seat indicated by the attendant & was subjected to not only verbal abuse by the woman, but she threw a drink on him, spit on him and attempted to bite him. The plane ended up making an unscheduled stop in Phoenix to get the woman off the plane. He played an audio recording of just a few minutes of her rantings and all I can say is that after 10 years answering 911 calls, I have never heard anything more evil & demonic - outside of The Exorcist - as that woman sounded.

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JILL. YOU'RE KIDDING. Oh my gosh?? I can't believe they made your friend sit next to him just because he was a big man? This sounds like a movie. I hope he still has the recording.

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On a flight from the Naxchivan Autonomous Republic to Azerbaijan aboard an ancient, disturbingly dirty Tupolev TU-154 jet, I found myself sitting hard against the right cabin wall and staring through the smudged window as my seat mates settled themselves in their seats. Then I felt a series of sharp blows to my left ribs from the elbow of the old babushka sitting in the seat next to me. I turned toward her and was met with a gloriously tooth-free smile, and a lavash and mutton sandwich held near my face as streams of sheep fat dripped through her fingers. She spoke to me warmly in Azerbaijani, a language I was only starting to learn, but I understood her intent perfectly. Communication is not always a product of words. Although a lifelong vegetarian, I ate the gift sandwich with gratitude for her generosity and the human need to share with one another.

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deletedJan 29
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Hahaha heresy for British people. This reminds me of when my friends and I met a man on a backpacking trip, and when we told him where we were from, he said, "Oh yes, that's near Flan, right?" And we all stared at him and said we'd never heard of a city called Flan, but he swore this Flan place was right next to where we were from. We went back and forth for a few minutes before we realized he meant Phelan, (pronounced FEE-lan), which is where we had all gone to high school and where one of my friends even lived at the time of this conversation. Our brains were just not computing at all with the missing syllable.

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