It started at LAX — the woman was impossible to miss. Designer sunglasses, loud voice, and a tiny dog dressed like it had its own influencer account. She was on FaceTime, volume at full blast, showing off the terminal to whoever was on the other end while her dog squatted right in the middle of the floor and did its business.
When a man nearby gently pointed it out, she glared daggers at him and said, “Some people have zero manners,” before strolling away and leaving the mess behind.
That was her pattern all day. She yelled at TSA agents, rolled her eyes at baristas, and let her dog bark at every stroller, child, and elderly traveler who crossed her path. Airport staff tried to reason with her, but she treated them like they were beneath her.
By the time I reached my gate for the Paris flight, she was there too — and you could feel the exhaustion in the air. People weren’t tired from travel. They were tired from her.
She was still shouting into her phone, laughing at TikToks, and blasting music without headphones. Her dog barked nonstop, and she did nothing. The whole waiting area looked like it wanted to collectively disappear.
Every time she opened her mouth, you could see another silent eye roll ripple through the crowd. When she finally sat down, everyone shifted seats, trying to get as far away as possible. Everyone except me.
I sat right beside her. Calm. Patient. With a plan.
The empty seat next to her was basically a force field — nobody dared get close. She glanced at me, rolled her eyes, and went back to scrolling on her phone. Her dog yapped at my backpack, but she ignored it.
“Headed to Paris?” I asked lightly, like I was just being friendly.
She sighed dramatically, like the weight of humanity was crushing her. “Obviously. Why else would I be sitting here?”
I smiled. “Just making sure you knew they changed the gate. They announced it a few minutes ago, but you probably didn’t hear with your music playing.”
Her head snapped toward me. “What do you mean they changed it?”
“Flight 230,” I said smoothly, nodding toward the far end of the terminal. “They moved it to Gate 57. It’s a bit of a walk, but they’ve been announcing it for fifteen minutes. I almost missed it myself.”
She frowned, pulling up her phone. “That’s not what my app says.”
“Yeah, the app’s been lagging all day,” I whispered, like I was sharing a secret. “Better go check — they’re boarding soon.”
Her irritation warred with her pride. But then she huffed, scooped up her dog, and snapped, “Unbelievable. This airport’s a joke.” She stomped off, heels clicking angrily against the tile, muttering insults under her breath.
The second she disappeared, the entire gate exhaled.
A man in a baseball cap across from me leaned in. “Did you just…?”
I grinned. “Guess she missed the announcement.”
The gate agent tried to hide a smile. A woman with a stroller started giggling. An elderly couple gave me a thumbs-up. You could feel the whole place relax — like someone had flipped off a blaring alarm.
Conversations restarted. People smiled. Even the baby stopped crying. For the first time all day, the gate felt… peaceful.
When boarding began, the energy was totally different. Passengers helped each other with bags, shared snacks, even joked with strangers. There was this unspoken sense of unity — like we’d all survived something together.
As I walked onto the plane, the gate agent glanced up and murmured with a knowing smirk, “Enjoy your flight, sir.”
“Oh,” I said, “I definitely will.”
The doors closed, and with them, the chaos stayed behind.
Hours later, cruising over the Atlantic, I overheard a couple whisper, “That guy at the gate saved the whole flight.”
Maybe they were right.
When we landed in Paris, I grabbed my bag and smiled at the sight of calm, happy faces around me. But as we headed for customs, a voice came over the airport speakers:
“Would passenger [her name] please report to the airline desk. Your rescheduled flight details are available.”
She’d missed the flight. Apparently, her temper got her bumped to standby for the next day after she screamed at gate staff for the ‘confusion.’
While she was trapped in another 24 hours of her own chaos, the rest of us stepped into the Paris morning, free and laughing.
Maybe she blamed the staff. Maybe she told her friends a different story. Maybe she never realized she was the problem.
But everyone who witnessed it learned the same thing: entitlement always finds a way to trip over itself.
Travel can bring out the best or the worst in people. You can choose to make it easier for those around you, or you can make it miserable. Either way, it comes back around.
Kindness creates calm. Entitlement breeds chaos.
And that day, karma made sure the loudest person in the terminal was the only one left behind.
Moral: Respect costs nothing — but it can buy peace for everyone.