Bad breath and judging people

I just returned from a whirlwind trip to the beautiful state of OHIO.  I was able to visit the Kirtland Temple and get a tour which was completely awesome.

The travel part of my job can be tough, 15-20 hour days are the norm.  However I had an experience on my way home that was just funny and made me appreciate the small things in life…like a breath mint.

I got to my hotel at 12:30 Wednesday night.  My plane left at 6:00 in the morning.  This meant that I had to get up at 4:00am in order to have time to get dressed, packed, return my car and get checked in at the airport.  Keep in mind I am still operating on West coast time so I was not able to fall asleep until after 2:00am.  I got up at 4:00 with less than 2 hours of sleep and was beat.  I got checked in and they bumped me to first class and I immediately sat down put on head phones, sun glasses and went to sleep.  I don’t remember the take off or flight.  When we landed I did wake up.  This was only a 90 minute flight to South Carolina where I would get my connection back to Seattle.  My assigned seat was a window in the very last row next to the bathroom, not exactly first class.  I did not care, I just wanted to sleep.  I took out my inflatable pillow, headphones and sun glasses and was out cold in nothing flat. 

I woke up 3 hours later and started talking to the guy next to me.  I immediately noticed this guy’s bad breath.  We are not talking normal run of the mill bad breath we are talking wake the dead, make you gag, hard to concentrate slinkiness.  As soon as I was able to politely end the conversation I put my headphones back on and tried to sleep some more.  We had a couple of other conversations over the course of the flight with the same results.  After we landed I took my time getting my things put away.  I was going to be the last person off of the plane.  I took my pillow and deflated it.  The valve was pointed at my face when the air came out and it smelled like that guys bed breath.  In that moment, I realized the bad breath was not from the guy next to me it was all mine.  I had a quick feeling of guilt, then laughter and then a desire to dig for a breath mint.

As simple at this was it was a great lesson in both personal hygiene and not judging people too quickly.  You never know when the stinky funk will actually be emanating from you.