I don’t know how much glamour you think surrounds the very low rungs of the showbiz ladder which I inhabit, but last night a lady shit on my leg.

That’s not some crazy euphemism for someone ruining my day. As in, “What? Arby’s discontinued their amazing Smokehouse Pork Belly Sandwich? Don’t shit on my leg, man!” However, take it from me, having someone actually shit on your leg does tend to put the brakes on your day.

Having spent 12 hours getting to, sitting in or flying to an airport, I was already not having a joyous travel day. (Because I’m cursed, this also included a clueless Uber driver who, despite my choice of destination as San Diego International Airport, ended up trying to drop me off at the United States Marines Recruit Depot.)

Finally my last flight landed at Fort Lauderdale, and it was time for the agonizing viscosity of trying to get everyone off the plane.

Seriously, how hard can it be to do this in an orderly fashion?

1. Wait your turn.
2. Left half of a row up and out first.
3. Then the right half.
4. And so it should go, row by row, from front to back.
5. If you are a slow mover or your bag is further back in the plane than you are, get out of the way of others in your row and wait until everyone has left so you can get your bag. It’s not difficult. Unless you are a sociopath.

Somewhere at the front of my flight was just such a sociopath, who had left his bag further back than his seat was. I let the elderly couple on the left side of my row into the aisle, then I raised the aisle-side armrest of my chair and slid halfway off my seat to wait for the line to move.

Of course the jackhole who needed his bag RIGHT NOW began pushing his way back and bumped the old man, who then bumped backwards into the old woman. It happened in slow-mo: the lady teetering, tottering, falling back.

Then, with a splat, she landed on my knee. I was happy that I was there to stop her complete descent to the floor, which surely would have ended up in low bone-density tragedy. And there we were, like a ventriloquist and his puppet, for a couple of seconds before the actual dummy got his bag and the woman’s husband was able to help her up.

I grabbed my bag from the overhead bin and made my way out. But something was wrong, I felt one knee was colder than the other. As if it were wet and was now exposed to the elements.

“That’s odd,” I thought. Then… the smell.

No! No no no no no!

Anyway, that’s how I found myself at 1am washing my jeans in a hotel tub and  scrubbing my leg raw.

If there is a metaphorical showbiz ladder, I would normally characterize myself as being quite near the bottom rung. But for this night, imagine that at the bottom of this ladder was another ladder like at the entrance to the Swan Station on Lost. A ladder that went deep into a dark, terrible, no good hole. This night, I was at the bottom of that ladder.

Oh well, the old saying holds true: The worst day doing what you love is better than the best day doing what you hate. And in the end, having someone shit on my leg because I was lucky enough to be there to stop her from falling isn’t the worst thing to happen to my knee. But it is number two.