This is why I don’t drink. It’s probably more appropriate to say that I shouldn’t drink. It was nice to let go for a moment, but I can’t lean into that feeling. Then it becomes a habit. I don’t think I was gone for long. I was in the same seat, and the same headache was waiting for my return.

The bartender brought over another drink and I nearly threw it in his face. Was he trying to get me drunk? He insisted that I had ordered it, and something in the way he looked at me made me pause. The bartender was angry, but in his eyes, I could see the glint of fear. He really believed this fabrication.

I told him that I would not be paying for that drink, so he might as well drink it himself, or pour it down the drain for all I cared. I paid my bill, all the while feeling the cold stares of the other bar patrons along with the bartender. No one said a word though, so I left the bar to stand near the gate.

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By some miracle, I actually got off of the waitlist, and made it onto the flight. I braced myself for a glare or perhaps a rude comment from the gate agent when she scanned my ticket, but instead, she smiled at me. I was caught off guard, but managed to smile back.

As I was making myself as small as possible in my middle seat, I began to go over the changes I needed to make to avoid this from happening again. On the one hand, I was lucky that it was only these anomalous interactions and I didn’t do anything truly abhorrent. But I can’t leave these things up to chance.

We took off, and as I sat crammed between two overly large people, I felt myself breathe a sigh of relief. Whatever had happened back in that terminal was dwindling the background. A slip like that can’t happen again.