Travel log: Buffalo, part I...

We're in the home of Buffalo wings for this year's Ag Media Summit where the weather is a beautiful 70 degrees, and that's a huge change of pace from the 100+ degrees we left back in Southwest Kansas.

We left Dodge City at 6:30 a.m. to make the drive to Wichita for the first leg of our journey. There are four of us traveling together this time, so it's not a solo trip. This particular trip requires strategic packing because this is a conference with a lot of cute outfits, shoe changes, and bling. In other words, you better show up prepared to make the best dressed list. My 46 pound suitcase was packed full of black, because it's multifunctional.

I was a little nervous when the boarding passes were all present, but one. The dreaded "Seat Assigned At Gate" was printed on one of our travelers documents. This seems to happen to her every time we travel together. I wasn't too worried because we had plenty of time, but I was a little worried when they let me check her bag in - without an ID. This tells me that one of the following was taking place, 1) the gate agent could care less about doing her job correctly, 2) we travel so much they recognize us, or 3) we got lucky. I'm going to go with the first option.

We breezed through security and got to our gate. We also fixed the small issue with getting a seat assigned. Once all was straight we started our journey. To travel hell.

I got queasy as we landed in Atlanta to grab our connecting flight. Luckily I had some Dramamine on me, but it is very uncharacteristic for me to feel sick on these types of flights. My feeling queasy is a picnic compared to the next flight.

As one of my travel buddies tried to board the plane they stopped her. "You're already on the plane, it says."

Apparently the gate agent in Wichita printed out the wrong second boarding pass and they were switched, so they had to find her a seat. And they did. At the threshold to hell. Let me preface this by saying as the plane arrived at the gate a text message appeared, "get me off this goddmaned plane. Worst seat mate EVER!!!!"

Once I got to the terminal she tells me that a small Asian man sitting next to her had zero respect for her personal space and was reading her iPad over her shoulder, breathing his dragon breath in her line of smell. He then proceeded to open a bag of chips and eat each one with smacking chews. After his snack he loosened his belt, unbuttoned his pants, and let down the zipper before taking a short 10 minute nap. When he decided to wake up he groaned and moaned as he stretched uncomfortably before reaching for the barf bag and proceeded to gag into the bag. It was then the smell of "fecal material" became apparent. He then vacated the seat to spend an extended time in the toilet. However, when he returned he had a slight odor about him. It's unclear, but if we were to speculate there was some pants shitting going on.

All we could do was laugh. And, I thought the guy who wouldn't shut up behind me was bad. I'll take a gum flapper over a pants shitter any day of the week.