Crazy airplane lady

I haven't blogged in ages, because I just haven't felt like it. Well, it is time to get back on the horse, and what better way than with a brief recollection about my recent airline experience with an actual crazy person?

The scene: a Sunday afternoon Southwest flight from Phoenix to Little Rock, with a brief stop in Houston. The culprit: a crazy, curly-haired woman around 60 years old. She wore a full length, matronly dress with a floor-length winter coat and a scarf on over that. All this on a warm, gorgeous day, mind you. I first noticed her on my way to the bathroom, when I saw her in a seat in the back row, breathing through her scarf, holding it over her mouth like some kind of mask. Umm...odd. Shortly after that, she started to wander. She meandered around the aisle with no apparent reason or purpose. At one point she made a pit stop in the row in front of me, grabbing the vacant aisle seat of a young lady that was in the bathroom, leaving her boyfriend in the adjacent seat to glance at her with a look that obviously said, Umm, crazy lady, why the fuck are you sitting in my girlfriend's seat?

The weird behavior reached its zenith on our descent into Houston. Crazy Lady kept trying to walk around during the landing. "I don't have to listen to you," was her response to more than one flight attendant. Actually, you do. So we hit the runway. We don't have a gate, and anyone who has ever flown knows that you stay in your seat until you hear the magic "ding" indicating that the jetway is good to go. Not crazy lady. More wandering the aisle. And I'll be honest, at this point I am literally planning what I am going to do if she pulls out a weapon or an explosive. Because really, that is the world we live in now. I'm looking for like-minded, vigilant individuals in other rows, silently making eye contact with guys clearly doing exactly what I' m doing. Crazy Lady is finally informed that if she doesn't stay put, the police will get involved. This got her to plop down until shortly before we got to the gate. But then she got up and made her way through the plane, mildly shoving people and telling them that she didn't have to listen to them. And then she got off the plane.

Odd. Very, very odd.