Written for Creative Writing April 2008
Most of us have experienced the joys of airport travel: the sound of rolling luggage wheels clicking on the tile, the smell of fast food and industrial strength cleaning products, and the Starbucks just down the hall from the Starbucks. Traveling by plane has the very real potential of being one of the worst things you will ever have to live through. Never mind the lost baggage and delayed flights, most of the time it’s the other passengers that make it all so miserable.
In my own travels, I have been surrounded by cranky babies, alarmed by creepy weirdoes, and stuck in between a really fat man and a skinny homosexual. I have also had a friend who was seated next to man who was acting so suspiciously she thought he was a terrorist!
You can meet some very strange people on airplanes, and while some aspects of these interactions can’t be helped, here are some rules that we can all follow in an attempt to make air travel a more pleasant experience:
1. Assume that everyone is in the same rush that you are. Just because you’re running late for your flight, doesn’t mean that you deserve any shortcuts. There are hundreds of other people all around you who are late too, so just stay calm, don’t push or shove, and don’t snap at or give dirty looks to the slow people.
2. Don’t move other people’s stuff in the overhead bins. It’s not yours, so don’t touch it! I have personally witnessed this rule being broken. I was boarding a flight and, first of all, this guy totally cut me in line (see rule 1). Then, when he got to his row, he reached up to the overhead bin and proceeded to rearrange all of the belongings of the woman already seated there! I watched in utter shock as the woman became so vexed that she got up and moved her things out of his way just to be done with him. I felt sorry that she had to sit next to this moron the whole flight. I would have made sure to get up at least half a dozen times during that trip!
3. And that leads us to the next rule: unless you are trying to piss someone off, don’t keep getting up during the flight. Not only does this cause problems for the people you have to climb over, it can interfere with the flight crew as well. They’re always pushing those carts down the aisles, so they really don’t need a bunch of people wandering around unnecessarily. If you need to get up once or twice, that’s fine and people will be glad to clear a path for you. But when you need to leave your seat every half hour, you really should have booked an aisle seat.
4. Don’t make conversation with people who have that bewildered or extremely annoyed look in their eyes. They don’t want to talk to you, so shut up!
5. Make sure you don’t smell. Shower, wear deodorant, brush your teeth, and don’t wear too much perfume or cologne. No one wants to be stuck sitting next to someone who smells too strongly of anything. And besides, some people are allergic to perfumes. Just be considerate of your fellow passengers’ noses.
6. Don’t make any loud or repetitive noises. Turn down your headphones, don’t tap your fingernails on your tray table, and KEEP YOUR KID QUIET! This is, perhaps, the rule that is most often broken; it has become the cliché pet peeve of air travel.
Although it is impossible to keep completely silent, I don’t think it’s that difficult to keep noise to a bearable minimum. I was once stuck sitting in front of some little kid that kept making noise and bumping my seat. All I wanted was to take a nice nap during the flight, but no! My snoozing was constantly interrupted by thumps and whimpers. I tried to send the tyke some subtle hints by shifting in my seat and giving a random bump back, but my efforts were to no avail. I was seriously about to turn around and beat the little twerp.
So, please, just get your kids to sit still and quiet; I don’t care if you have to drug them or deprive them of sleep the night before, I want some peace!
7. The cabin space is shared space. Keep all belongings and appendages out of other people’s way. If you need more room, fly first class.
I hope that you will take these simple guidelines to heart the next time you fly. If we work together, we can make air travel a bit more pleasant for everyone. It’s not that hard; basically, just be considerate of the other travelers on your flight. If you’re nice to them, they’ll at least leave you alone.
Thank you for flying with us!
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