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Crazy note-passing war on Thanksgiving flight

A delayed flight home on Thanksgiving Day was the backdrop for a mid-air spat that played out live on Twitter and ended with one flier getting slapped in the face by the passenger from hell.

The holiday feud at 30,000 feet was both instigated and narrated by a Los Angeles man named Elan Gale, whose Twitter bio says he’s a television producer for shows including ABC’s The Bachelor. Gale’s tweets started in New York around 11 a.m. on Thursday as he waited for takeoff of a USAirways flight to Phoenix, where he planned to connect to Los Angeles.

“Our flight is delayed,” he wrote to his followers. “A woman on here is very upset because she has Thanksgiving plans. She is the only one obviously. Praying for her”

That snarky post from @theyearofelan was the first of many, as Gale described the woman in question abusing flight attendants and just generally raising everyone’s blood pressure:

“She had to sit down because we took off. She has been muttering ‘about DAMN time’ and I can hear her breathing 5 rows back”

Deciding he’d had enough, Gale decided to engage directly with the awful traveler who would come to be known as “Diane in 7A.”

He sent her a glass of wine and a handwritten note that read in part, “It is a gift from me to you. Hopefully if you drink it, you won’t be able to use your mouth to talk. Love, Elan.”

“Diane,” not surprisingly, took the bait.

“Dear Elan,” she fired back in a handwritten note of her own that Gale posted right away, “The wine wasn’t funny … You’re an awful person with no compassion. I’m sorry for your family that they should have to deal with you. – Diane.”

Gale told his followers, “This means war”— which he promptly escalated.  First came abrasive tweets mocking “Diane”’s appearance: “mom jeans and a studded belt … a medical mask over her idiot face.”

And then Gale sent over another handwritten note. It concluded, “I hate you very much. Eat my d—“

The hostile note-passing continued all the way to Phoenix, as hundreds of fellow Twitizens favorited, retweeted and replied to Gale’s real-time updates. The Web site Buzzfeed caught wind of Gale’s Twitter spree and promptly reposted highlights.

Some Twitter users also criticized Gale for tormenting a fellow passenger, but Gale brushed them off as “Diane apologists.”

And when everybody got off the plane, Gale’s next tweet was, “Well, ‘Diane’ just slapped me.”

According to Gale, a gate agent offered to call the cops on his behalf but he declined — and instead just handed “Diane” another note.

After he finally got home to Los Angeles, Gale took to his Tumblr blog to explain his actions toward Diane (who was apparently flying on to Sacramento).

“I had a great time antagonizing her, reading your responses, and just generally trying to have fun with an irritating person. But I did have a point and I just want to put it out there. I know I can come across as abrasive. I know I can seem harsh. But what I’ve never done is be unkind to a person in a service position. … I don’t care what’s going on with you: Don’t be rude to people who are doing their job.”