Excuse me Sir.

In the last couple of years I have been traveling on airplanes more and more. I actually really dislike airplane travel. The combination of the smell from the plane and the air is enough to make me sick. But I suck it up to be places fast because I wanna go fast, I wanna go fast… name that movie.

Depending on how tired I am, my mood, and which young adult novel I have in my carry on I do not want to talk to my fellow passengers. But usually, I love to get to know the people around me. I love feeling them out to see if they want to talk too. The distraction makes the flight go by.

On my recent flight back to the great state of Oklahoma I had a layover in Houston. I was one of the last people to board due to only flying standby because I’m cheap. I had my big rolling suitcase carry on and I’m looking for an empty seat and I see one, next to a man that looked like he could handle lifting my suitcase in the overhead bin. So I kindly asked him “Excuse me Sir, can you help me with my bag?” and then I sat next to him.

He was one of those passengers I just knew I needed to talk to. He had a devotional book in his lap, a Blackberry AND an iPhone, and he looked like he was a football player, I think he was probably 7 feet tall and 300 lbs. Or something like that. I let him do his own thing for a bit before I made my move. Normally the usual airplane convo starts with a “where are you traveling to?” “are you from insert airplane destination city?” but for some reason the only thing that came out of my mouth was….

“I have more arm hair than you”

Weird? Yes. True? Very. Why did he have no arm hair?? Well that was all it took for me to basically get his life story. He was an old Oklahoma State University football player. My alma mater and hometown. And now he is a professional football player. He also loves Jesus, does not know the Kadashians (I asked), and loves Braums (hamburger joint back home).

I had a feeling he was big time, went with my gut and it paid off. Well not literally, I was also hoping he would give me money after he found out my husband doesn’t get paid and we move every 3 months. But he didn’t. That’s okay. That might have been awkward for the other guy sitting next to us.

I told him I was going to creep and take a picture of him and tweet it and I did (this is not the picture I tweeted, this is just another creeper picture I took of him. I wanted to protect his face, ya know, cause I'm sure he is reading this). And now he is following me on Twitter too. He only follows maybe 100 people compared to the thousands that follow him. Oh, and he is now following me on Instagram. I'm so cool. #Brag.

My moral of the story… always talk to strangers. On airplanes.

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Has anyone else ever met a "famous" person on an airplane? Anyone good you've sat next to? How about falling in love on an airplane? That is the ultimate story!