"I had a seat!!"

"Didn't you hear your flight being called?"

"Yeah...but I had a seat!!"

"Why didn't you come?"

"I had just done put a quarter of my own money in the TV, and I wasn't gonna waste it. 'Sides, I wanted to see who won the Fiero, and I had--"

"Well, sir, I'm afraid--"

"I ain't never gonna fly People's again!!"

"But this is Piedmont, sir."

"I had a seat!!"

It degenerated after this point, and five minutes later security guards made the man leave the area.

By the time I finally got my seat, there were only three left on the plane. "It's in the smoking section, I'm afraid," the agent smiled, "but it's right next to the bathroom."

For the remaining 90 minutes to Roanoke, I found myself wedged between a man in a camouflage jacket and a Confederate "Forget hell!" hat who may well have been the Imperial Wizard, and another man who looked unnervingly like Charles Manson. When I wasn't choking on the fumes of the former's Camels, I was gagging in the acrid smoke of the latter's home-grown monstrosities.

BY THE TIME I stumbled off the plane in Roanoke, only two hours behind schedule, I was sick as a radioactive dog.

What followed was four days of fun and leisure, which I now realize was to prepare me for the ordeal of coming home.

I stepped back into the storm at 6:00 p.m. on Monday. My girlfriend, a sophomore at William and Mary, had given me a ride to Norfolk so I could catch a cheap People Express flight to Boston.