This past weekend, I had to head down to Washington, D.C., to attend a funeral. As if the circumstances of travel weren’t strenuous enough, I decided to fly. I hate air travel — how passengers are degraded and herded like shoeless idiot-sheep and how everything is hermetically sealed in soft white boxes but could still blow up at 35,000 feet at any moment. The last time I flew, my plane almost crashed on landing because of crazy-force winds. The time before that, my flight was cancelled, thus canceling my Spring Break.

This time, I was bumped from my JetBlue flight thanks to a bad weather delay. I had a connection to make in New York, and I was going to miss the second leg by a mere 10 minutes. I asked if they could maybe hold the connecting plane, as surely there were other Bostonians trying to make that flight to D.C. But they said no, it was an FAA directive: The New York flight had to leave on time and there was nothing they could do.

Five minutes after they loaded the plane and closed the gate, I got a call from my brother, who was also taking that connection to D.C. He said was delayed 40 minutes down there too, so I should have been able to make my connection. But the JetBlue fool behind the computer kiosk, wearing a ridiculous blue bandanna around his neck and a fake plastic smile, said, “Well, maybe you could take a flight tomorrow morning.” Screw that, I told them – I’m going to take the train.

A 10-hour night train is a desperate act of frustration, but what could I do? It was Jet Blue’s miscommunication within its own company. I’ve seen what happens to cheated customers who become irate and yell, and at least I was given a refund. I was reminded of a story my brother once told me about minding my manners in this type of situation:

One time he was taking the New Jersey Transit train out from New York. The train was full, and the conductor had locked the first four cars to accommodate expected traffic. But everyone was cramped and standing in the aisles. When the conductor came through to collect tickets, one annoyed Jerseyan confronted him, shouting “What the ‘eff? Open up the train, you ‘eff!” The conductor considered the insults for a minute, before threatening to remove him from the train.

Without actually solving the problem, the conductor used his authority to dominate the situation until the belittled man sat back down. But another passenger stood up, and said simply, “I am a business man myself, and I know you monitor how many tickets are sold and when to expect more trains, so I want to know: Why you are incapable of running a business?” Other passengers chimed in: “Yeah, why are you such an idiot?” “How come you don’t know how to organize your train?” It was nothing inappropriate or obscene. The conductor then walked out and proceeded to open up the rest of the train.

So, as I stood at the JetBlue ticket counter, I thought how some bullies can be tamed, while with others you have no chance. One must know how to pick one’s battles and even more importantly how to fight them.

Galen Mook, a senior in the University Professors Program, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected].