The news lately has been so crazy.
I continue to wonder if the entire world is going mad, or if it has always been that way, and we just didn’t know all that was going on before this age of 24 hour news coverage.
Do you suppose?
Reading USA Today, I read where a student “somebody-or-other” complained that the airline made her flush her hamster down the toilet. She had been riding on Spirit Airlines, an American low cost carrier airline. I guess it’s the 8th largest commercial airline in the U.S. so says the internet.
Anyway, she related that she brought the hamster on the plane; that it was her “emotional support” hamster. I guess this “support” animal habit is growing among the emotionally fragile population, and that the airline is struggling with their policies toward these animals.
She must have carried it on in her pocket. But, doesn’t the scanner or the x-ray pick that up? Couldn’t the machine detect little (moving) hamster bones in her pocket?
I hope that when I fly, I don’t sit by someone who is this close to needing comfort to keep her or him from shrieking and screaming in terror. I can handle the hamster, but I can’t handle that.
Next, I read about a young woman in her early 20’s ripping her eyeball out of her head, and then running to a nearby church in South Carolina.
Now, this is gory, I agree. But, I challenge you to try to do that. Just reach up to your eyeball and see if you can get a good grasp on it. You can’t? Me neither. How on earth?
And speaking of the airlines again ... poor airlines ... on another flight, a man locked himself in the bathroom. Alright. I understand that some folks might do that, as weird as it sounds. But, he locked himself in there and stripped naked.
Nothing like that ever happens when I fly.
Here’s my question. How did he ever get his clothes off in that little space that has about six inches of foot room on the floor? I can barely turn around, sit on the seat, maneuver back to my feet, and wash my hands in that little space. But, take all my clothes off?
gymnastics.
Then there’s the Susan Pierez lady on the airplane who started swearing and raising a fuss because she didn’t want to sit near a young woman and her little boy. After she had thrown a hissy fit, the stewardess told her she had to deplane. Ms. Pierez immediately began to backpedal and apologize, but too late, Susan. In the meantime, she held some high powered job on the Arts Council in New York and the N.Y. Council has since put her on leave.
Hurrah and double hurrah!
These incidents are becoming quite common on airlines, and the chances of witnessing this kind of lunacy are increasing as we speak.
We’ve all heard about the Kentucky doctor who was humiliated and dragged off the plane because the airline needed the seats for crew members who needed to ride on the overbooked flight. This man was dragged down the aisle floor by his arms. Now,folks, about then, I would definitely be thinking that maybe we were being hijacked or something.
How would you react?
And here is my last little detail on modern plane travel.
A woman from Kansas City on a United flight was told that she could not use the restroom because she was not allowed to leave her seat. Well, of course there are rules, lady! Go figure it out before you get on.
So, this lady urinated in a cup! What? How? I couldn’t manage that in one of those tight spaces if they paid me money to do it. What did the other passengers think? Oh man. How totally unbelievably nightmarish!
I definitely, absolutely am going to think twice before I fly anywhere.
Certainly, if the folks out there are going bonkers, I may as well be on the ground where I can leave or flee, or hide or something. But trapped in an airliner with all of this?
No way.

Judi Tabler lives in Pawnee County and is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune. She can be reached at bluegrasses@gmail.com. Visit her website juditabler.com or follower her on Twitter @Bluegrasses1.