The process of air travel used to leave me nothing more than cramped legs and boredom. However, as I’ve my age has progressed, I find myself more and more annoyed with people on airplanes than ever before. This flight that I am on (writing this on my laptop at present, posting it later) has given me a rather unique example of why flying is annoying to me now.
I arrived at the airport about an hour and twenty minutes before my flight. This would give me ample time to get through security and buy my book for the flight. I usually spend my entire flight reading, which I have been unable to do much of this flight…more on that later. I arrived in the security lines behind a family: father, mother, two daughters. They had more bags between them to carry on in flight than I have ever seen at an airport. I was sitting there pondering what on earth they could be carrying when another man travelling alone arrived at the area to start disrobing and taking out laptops just before me. It took this family no less than ten minutes to get through the security checkpoint after they exited the queue. Bag after bag after bag went on the conveyor. The mother was bringing up the rear, and to make light of the situation, the man in front of me said to her “I see you guys like to travel light.” In my mind, my first thought was “you shall regret this immensely.” She laughed, and the first words out of her mouth were “Some bags are just food, others are medication…well, if the airlines went peanut-free, we wouldn’t HAVE to carry all this.” Then she starts bitching incessantly about peanuts on airlines and how much she has to clean the seats and all the surfaces to make sure her one daughter doesn’t die. Wat.
Whatever. I’m through security. I don’t care. I still have an hour to spare. I buy my book: The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card. It’s been a good read so far, and I would be enjoying it more if not for the SECOND family I encountered. Right before I got on the plane, I encountered a family of six: loud, obnoxious spoiled bratty kid, younger kid, baby, mother, loud boisterous father, and a louder, stubborn, asshole grandfather. They were up about 10 people in front of me on the jetway. As I was listening to them, my only thought was “I hope to God I am not sitting anywhere near these people.” As I get on the plane, and they continue towards the back, the probability quickly approached 1. I also passed the other family, where the mom was busy cleaning every surface she could with wet wipes, and the girl was complaining about how wet everything is. I laughed a little on the inside, than sat in the row right before this family. They took up both sides of the aisle on one row, and they have proceeded to shout across the aisle at each other all flight. The kid behind me (the oldest) has kicked my seat pretty much all flight, making sleep impossible. The noise has made reading now impossible, as the kid has been complaining about one thing or another for the last hour. My controls for the in-flight entertainment (woo direct tv) have now ceased functioning (I’m sure this kid is to blame somehow), and I am stuck watching Sherlock Holmes on loop.
Now that’s just me bitching about the people. The process of boarding a plane these days is kind of annoying, although Continental-United now do it a slightly more efficient way. First class boards first (because they need to feel important), special needs and infants second, then “elite access” members (Continental’s way of making the rest of us scrubs feel special), then they board the plane back to front. If they took the time to look at this (and if the rich people in first class weren’t so damned bitchy and entitled), there could be the easiest god damned improvement to make this more streamlined: just board back to front. That way, it wouldn’t take a half hour to get everyone on the plane.
Next problem: everyone carries all they can onto a plane now. You have to pay for bags. This I have no easy solution for. However, this has resulted in a ridiculous amount of carry-ons and a constant mad rush and free-for-all to get as much overhead space as you can.
Third problem: Continental now makes you pay for food. The only place I really fly to from Jersey is Phoenix, which is a five and a half hour non-stop flight. Food is kind of necessary here. Now this just smacks of opportunistic extortion.
All of this is greatly improved in first class…if you can afford it, and if there are seats available by the time you book your flight. Of course, I am not paying for this flight (the last one I will probably not pay for myself), so I don’t fly first class. I fly the cheap seats in the back of the god damn bus. However, seeing as how I have a nice job now, I will probably fork over the money for it. It’s worth it simply to get away from these…people. If you can call them that. I swear, if my kid bitches nearly this much, I will slap the shit out of him until he shuts up.
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