On Flying and Endings

(Editors Note: This blog was written on a PDA Phone on US Airways Flight 490 from Phoenix to Denver. So if it’s more incoherent then normal, well now you know why)

Little know fact about me: I hate flying. It’s not that I’m afraid of it or that since 9/11 I fear that every minority on the plane is looking to hijack it and kamikaze us into the nearest skyscraper. I’ve actually traveled so much in the past few years that there’s nothing in the flying part of the trip that’s even the least bit unnerving for me. What gets to me is all the in between stuff. Going through security, baggage claim, ticket check in, power-tripping stewardess, etc., these are the things that seem to eat away at the very core of my being. All of it just leaves me physically and mentally drained, so much so that any excitement I might have about wherever I’m going is severely lessened. As if the traveling wasn’t bad enough, all the other people involved make things worse. In many ways I feel like people, and maybe humanity as a whole, dumbest qualities are manifested on an airplane. Whether it’s the stupidity of federal regulations, airline employees or my fellow travelers, few things in life reaffirm my position as a misanthrope quite like airline travel.

Arguably my least favorite part of flying is the storing of bags in overhead compartments. Only on the rarest of occasions do I use these, so what really annoys me is other people trying to do so. Upon entering an airplane I generally have to stand in the aisle for a few minutes before taking my seat because some middle-aged women can’t comprehend how her bag, which is 3 times the size of said compartment, won’t fit inside it. Hell even if the bag is the right size most people can’t seem to fit it in there unless the compartment is completely empty. If people stumble on to a compartment that already has a bag in it they tend to sit there and stare at it as if they’ve just been given an advance calculus problem in a foreign language. As if all this wasn’t bad enough, most people are also unable to get their bag out of the compartment once the plane has landed. Few things irk me quite like people’s inabilities to master, or even adequately use, the overhead storage compartment. I feel like we could solve this problem if everyone was forced to play an hour of Tetris a day for two weeks prior to their departure. This idea is practically full-proof.

Another thing I hate about flying is how my body reacts to it. I can’t prove it, but I’m fairly certain that once I’m above 20,000 feet my body starts to excrete olive oil as oppose to sweat. After every flight I generally look as if I’ve just been sprayed down with an industrial-sized bottle of Pam. On top of that I also look like I used a pound of Crisco as hair gel. For some reason I always exit a plane looking like I just got done running a marathon in the deep south in the middle of July. I feel fairly certain that I’m not the only one whose body does this on a plane, but it doesn’t really matter. Either way it makes me miserable.

Yet another terrible thing about airline travel is the other passengers on the plane. On almost every flight I’ve been on I seem to almost always be traveling with some wanna be hot shot business man who has to spend every last second until take off on the phone or frantically typing on his computer in an effort to get some last minute work in. It’s like the business world equivalent of a drunken frat boy desperately scrambling for some ass as last call is called at the bar. No good ever comes from such things. Either you’ll end up hooking up with a girl that all you’d be embarrassed of if your friends ever found out about. Or, in the business world, you get shown up by the stewardess who has to stand over you and wait for you to turn off all your gadgets while the whole plan shakes their head in your general direction while calling you a jackass under their breath. So please, frat guys and businessmen alike, just give it up already.

Almost as bad as businessmen in the world of airline travel are old people. Now I’m not one to promote ageism, but if I’ve never met you and will most likely never see you again then I really don’t care to hear a condensed history lesson on your grandchildren. Nor do I care to hear about how difficult your day of travel has been, it’s not nearly as exhilarating as you think. The problem is, if you somehow manage to get out of these unending conversations* then the old person will just call the stewardess and share all their fascinating stories with them (this too has actually happened to me). So really there’s no escape.

Speaking of stewardess, what exactly has happened to make these women so embittered towards the world? Not only are all of them on raging power-trips, but they all look like they have a second job teaching water-aerobics or as a fitness instructor at Curves. All stewardess seem to have an air of superiority around them that’s as unearned as it is illogical. I feel very strongly that with no training at all I could do a stewardess’ job just as effectively as they do. It’s really an incredibly easy job that anyone over the age of 12 could, yet these women think they’re bad asses because they serve stale pretzels and can pour soda into a plastic glass. Oh, they also do a nice job of reminding everyone pre-flight that in the event of a crash we’re all basically f*cked. I’m really at a complete loss as to where their arrogance comes from.

Anyhow, the reason I’m writing this is that yesterday (read: the 15th of May, I was very lazy in transcribing this from my phone) I traveled from Phoenix to Denver. I’ll be in Colorado for the summer and thus won’t be updating my blog for the next 3-4 months, so this is my parting shot. Goodnight and Good luck.

Until We Meet Again
* On the very trip in which I wrote this blog, I had to go to the bathroom 3 different times to get out of a conversation with an old lady. And yes, I’m a bad person.