I went back to use the head, but they were occupied. And it still smelled of vomit. So I chatted with the cute asian stewardess.

"Wow! you weren't kidding. I thought that was just a great story to calm us all down"

No, she says, some idiot had been drinking in the airport, came onto the plane with a bag of McDonalds. He proceeded to stuff his face and keep drinking. Somewhere along the line, he had to puke. So he ran to the back of the plane to hit the restrooms. Didn't make it. Projectile vomited all over the back of the plane.

"I don't understand why someone would drink like that and get on a plane" she said.

"Or forget that there's a barf bag for that kind of thing", I said.

I've learned quite a bit about handling such episodes in my travelling days. You have a choice; shrug your shoulders, queue up, and endure , or take matters into your own hands. One thing that is nice in the continental US is good cell service, ubiquitous travel and hotel options, and apps.

This is very true. In my case this past weekend, I was unable to do this for two reasons. First, it was 2am when the flight was cancelled, and second, I was in a completely foreign country where pretty much everything had shut down for the night, and internet and telecoms services were spotty, to say the least.

It all turned out fine in the end, though. The stay at the 5-star business hotel certainly worked out quite nicely. I could not have done better than that on my own – and it was all free, mind.

The funniest one that happened to me was flying out of LAX, the plane was there, but there wasn't any momentum towards boarding. They made a few announcements that they were still readying the plane. The final announcement, just before boarding, they apologized for the huge delay, someone had vomited all over the back of the plane, and they were delayed by the cleanup.

I turned to my new buddy sitting next to me and said "That's a damn good excuse. Who'll argue with that?"

Oh that's funny. There is literally no way to quarrel with the airline taking as much time as humanly possible to clean that mess up.

I've had my airline app chime flight changes, and generally I can get on it and reschedule. So my patience to deal with an airline shitshow is inversely proportional to the size of the issue and size of the lines of the wretched I'll have to deal with. I learned this from my road warrior sister in law when coming back from the Caribbean.

There was some issue with the plane, so we were jettisoned off it, and sent out. My app kept chiming new departure times "Now 11PM" "Now 1AM" "Now 3AM". There were two huge lines, standing around, with the gate agents in perma-huddle mode. My brother in law went up to the huddle and asked what the deal was in an epic line – "Are we really leaving at 3am, or do you guys just don't know what to do?"

So he returns and tells us they are lining up hotel rooms and transportation. His wife picks up the mobile, gets two rooms using points, at the closest hotel and we leave the melee and hail a cab. Three hours later, as we're eating in the hotel restaurant, the wretched start pouring in.

So my decision point these days is whether or not to score a hotel on my own. Last time it happened to me, I stuck around for the voucher and immediately hailed a cab. I finished checking in and has headed to the bar when the bus pulled up.

But the big problem here, the one they get universally wrong – is fail to communicate. All it takes is getting on the PA and keeping the throngs informed. That's step #1 to avoid the riot. I suppose that depends on the airline.

The funniest one that happened to me was flying out of LAX, the plane was there, but there wasn't any momentum towards boarding. They made a few announcements that they were still readying the plane. The final announcement, just before boarding, they apologized for the huge delay, someone had vomited all over the back of the plane, and they were delayed by the cleanup.

I turned to my new buddy sitting next to me and said "That's a damn good excuse. Who'll argue with that?"