Airline Passenger Gets Arrested for Masturbating on the Flight. At Least Four Times.

Source -  A man on a Southwest Airlines flight faces federal charges after allegedly masturbating at least four times during the flight.

The Daily Beast reports that it happened on a flight from Seattle to Phoenix. ...

Antonio Sherrodd McGarity is accused of masturbating four times in the seat next to a female passenger. 

The woman took photos. When McGarity fell asleep, she told the flight crew what happened. They moved her to another seat on the flight.

The woman turned the photos over to Phoenix police when the flight landed.

The FBI interviewed him and says he didn't think the female passenger was uncomfortable with him masturbating and he thought "it was kind of kinky."

To borrow my favorite line about the current state of air travel from the great Dennis Miller: You know flying is bad right now because when was the last time you heard about a plane getting hijacked? The extremists are like "Look, I'm still down with the cause. But getting on a plane these days is asking way too much." 

How long ago was it when the biggest gripes we had about flying was crying babies, bad movies or the shitty food that launched a million hacky stand up routines? Ten years maybe? Fifteen? Those days seem like a utopia now. Between flights routinely getting canceled because they're only 90% full. People taking their shoes off like they're Del Griffith. Service pigs and emotional support mini-horses turning passenger jets into Old Testament arks. A lady breastfeeding her cat. Another slapping an old guy for taking his mask down to eat. Yet another mic'ing herself up to go on a deranged rant about how hot she is. Is it any wonder then that it's come to Antonio Sherrodd McGarity going full Louis CK on the trip from Seattle to Phoenix? 

I'm not making excuses for this unhinged lunatic by any stretch. Let's just say it's a short leap from the airlines treating us all like lab monkeys to guys like him acting like lab monkeys. Uninhibited by the norms of a civilized society. Feeling free to pleasure himself like a bonobo ape because no one treats each other like humans, so why act like one? It's not like you see in old TV shows where everyone is wearing suits and nice dresses and the stewardi treat you like royalty. These planes now are city busses with wings. When your entertainment choices comes down to watching TBS "Everybody Loves Raymond" reruns on a 3" X 5" screen with crappy headphones or joining The Solo Mile High Club over Portland - and Carson City, and Lake Tahoe, and Flagstaff - well, an unhealthy percentage of people are going to choose to whip up a batch. The odds are in our favor it won't happen. But it's also inevitable it will. And this poor woman drew the short straw. 

And let's not move on from this story without giving her all the credit in the world. She is the very definition of grace under fire. For all she knew, this creepshow was ready to do to her what Multiple Miggs in the cell next to Hannibal Lecter did to Clarice Starling. But she kept her cool. Got the evidence she needed. Waiting until McGarity got into his post-nut nap, and calmly and coolly dimed him out to the authorities. It's a damned shame he took her passivity as a sign she was into it. But I suppose pervs are gonna perv. 

I commend her for her handling of a total nightmare scenario, while at the same time feeling sorry she had to be the unwitting victim of the worst part of contemporary life: Air travel. I feel bad for her, and whoever had the misfortune of getting McGarity's seat on the next flight out of Phoenix. If you shined a black light on that thing it probably looked like a Jackson Pollack painting from all his DNA. But that's what we all deal with when we fly now. It's a fate almost worse than getting hijacked.