One of the things that most concerned me about air travel during this stage of the pandemic was encountering people who are causing problems aboard domestic flights. I'm sure you've read the stories about flight attendants being assaulted and unruly passengers being duct taped to their seats. Suffice it to say, these weren't scenes I wanted to witness at 30,000 feet.

I have always approached air travel with the objective of minimizing stress above all else. I don't like stress and being in a crowded airport / on a crowded plane is stressful enough. Toward this goal, I take the 6:20 am flight from Hartford (BDL) to Minneapolis (MSP) because that plane is already on the gate at our airport in the morning. I get to the airport two hours early, even though TSA-Pre gets me through security quickly. I was at my gate with one hour and forty minutes to spare – just how I like it.

I read some of your blogs and comments as I was alerted by the Fly Delta app that my luggage had been loaded onto the plane. My carry-on bag is a backpack containing my laptop. My "personal item" is a smaller bag containing my iPad. Once seated, I don the noise-cancelling headphones our daughter gave me a few years ago, and I enjoy my flight.

While some people avoid checking a bag, I embrace the option. My first (only) bag was checked for free. The Fly Delta app tracks the bag's progress at every step, and Delta has generally lived up to their "Your bag on the carousel in 20 minutes" guaranteed. (MSP) is a huge airport. By the time I made my way to baggage claim, my bag was already there. For the record, I haven't lost a bag during air travel since 1979.

I'm focusing on luggage because it's the source of my one-liner. On my way home, I flew from Des Moines (DSM) to MSP and then onto BDL. The flight from DSM to MSP was, as I mentioned last week, on-time and idiot-free. My flight from MSP to BDL was fine, but there was an encounter with a member of the entitled elite. I was following a woman during boarding. Her suitcase was way too big. The gate attendant told her it would have to be checked. The woman shrugged off that remark. At the end of the jetway, she ignored the polite young man who offered to check her bag. On board the plane, she encountered an immovable object – the flight attendant.

The flight attendant informed the woman that her bag would not fit in the overhead bins. Words were exchanged, but the flight attendant stuck to the facts – the bag was bigger than the largest bin on the plane. The woman shouted:

"I paid for a first-class ticket, and I expect you to accommodate my request!"

We were asked to back ourselves back into the jetway while the woman rolled her suitcase off the plane and handed it to the nice young man. The rest of the flight was incident free.

This post is part of Linda G. Hill's fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday. If you would like to join in on the fun, you can follow this link to participate and to see the one-liners from the other participants.

Note: I still can't get the captions to appear in the mosaic. If you want to see the captions, you'll have to click to enter the slide show.