I Love To Fly… Does it show?
Rather than annoy me, I find comfort in the predictability of air travel; each flight I take is essentially the same. There are very few privileges extended to frequent travelers any more. One of them is that you board the plane first. People requiring special assistance (and no, your quad-D boobs don’t require special assistance) board first followed by families with small (whiny) children and then me. Because of this, I always get overhead space (that I seldom need) but more importantly, I get to sit comfortably and watch everyone else board the plane. If people watching were an Olympic sport, I’d make the team.
There are a few certainties in air travel today that remain consistent no matter where I fly. A man will try to stuff his bag into an overhead compartment that’s clearly too small and he’ll be indignant when a flight attended suggests that she’d be happy to gate check it to his final destination. Someone will bring food from home and the scent of it will travel through the re-circulated air filling the cabin with the aroma of day old casserole. A woman will have to be told no fewer than 4 times to please put her seat in the upright and locked position. “I forgot” she’ll say always in a southern drawl. Really, you forgot FOUR TIMES? A different woman, sitting in the bulkhead will insist that her purse remain at her feet, event though there’s no stowage there and a flight attendant will wrestle her for it like her purse is the last roll of toilet paper on the shelf at Target before an ice storm.
Sometimes it’s hard not to laugh. A few people board, look around and you can actually see the bubble over their head read, “Wait. This is a plane. I didn’t know I was flying today.” They are genuinely confused as they look about the cabin expectantly like, I don’t know what. That they will be seated next to someone famous? A hot member of the desired sex? That an extra 7 feet of leg room will appear with a drop down flat panel, a remote control and an ice tub of Bud Light? Once they realize that the aircraft is a CRJ900 and they really are going to be seatmates with someone whose ass overhangs into the seat they are supposed to occupy, that look of confusion is replaced first with contempt and then resolution and usually an in flight cocktail.
Comments