Texas-flavored peanuts

Welcome to my first post. Heck, my first blog!
I figured, let's start with something light, like maybe the topic of bad breath.

I recently had to fly to Texas, and if you've ever met anyone from northern TX, well, then maybe you know what I mean by the "I wear a 10-gallon hat & belt buckle the size of my belly, proud member of the unofficial good ol' boys club, and drive a F350 pickup just to have somewhere to tote my gun-rack around in" type of bad breath. Mr. Potty-breath somehow managed to fit into the seat behind me, despite his stature & us flying in a teeny Express-Jet (probably not much bigger than his F350). It being late October, it seemed Mr. P had caught some little bug in his esophagus (then again, perhaps it was those 4 cigars he undoubtedly smokes each day), and proceeded to cough up his lungs again & again throughout the hour-long flight. But that wasn't the bad part, no. It was his BREATH, especially the gust that would waft to surround me. It could've put a bull down, if a rancher ever ran out of tranquilizers.

Now, I'm by nature one of the least confrontational people on the planet... but I'll do it if absolutely necessary. Not that liberating my overly-sensitive nose from that torture didn't constitute "necessary", but I'll try hints first... You know, like holding my nose with my sleeve-covered hand; doing the "whew, what IS that?" disgusted glance around; etc. I thought it was actually working for a second when I heard a woman say to her companions, "See? She smells it too!" ...at which point, I took a brief whiff only to discover there was an even more offensive odor permeating the cabin, probably involved with the bathroom system. Eventually, I think the crew took care of that issue, only to leave me back at square one with Mr. P. I thought / hoped the beverage service would temporarily replace whatever crawled up into his mouth & died - but no such luck. The airline's pathetic coffee beans were no match for his malodorous bacteria.

So, my question: wouldn't it make life easier - and maybe even make sense - to have airline attendants be responsible for passengers' bad breath? I mean, they're responsible for making our travel experience as comfortable as possible, and I don't think handing out breath-mints to those halitosis offenders is anything above & beyond their capabilities or duty...

Let's hear from the peanut gallery...

test