I'm writing this from a hotel room in Chicago with very little insulation in the wall. I'm pretty sure the left side of my body is about 10 degrees cooler than my right (just so you know in case my typing gets weird). My trip here was such a typical pain in the butt, I just had to write about it to give you non-travelers out there a taste of my 'glamorous' life.
As I'm getting on the plane, a woman in first class was flossing her teeth. No, she wasn't just flossing her teeth, she was vigorously attacking them with dental floss. Angrily, even. In a manner that screamed "I HAVE AN OCD PROBLEM!" Not sure what those poor teeth and gums did to her, other than maybe harbour some stringy pork or something, but she was hell bent on getting something out of there. While seated in a first class aisle seat while 150 other people are walking past her to board the plane. Niiiice. I'm just hoping she didn't fling whatever she drilled out of there onto me as I passed.
Once I reach my seat back in cattle class, I notice a woman in an aisle seat diagonal from me sitting down and yanking the barf bag out from the seat-back pocket in front of her. She opened it with purpose, and proceeded to stare at the bottom of the inside of the bag as if she had every intention on filling it. Mind you, we're still stationary. Just seeing somebody like that put my stomach on high alert. Not much grosses me out, except for another adult human throwing up, or getting ready to throw up. I feel gross just writing about it. Yuck.
It turned out ok (for me, anyway), she just held onto that bag like it was her security blanket the whole 2 hour flight (all the way up to the gate, too), jiggling one leg nervously, and looking miserable in general. But she didn't do anything nasty, thank goodness.
Even if she had, I probably wouldn't have been able to hear it with the screaming, babbling two-and a half year-old seated in my row. Her mom was seated between me and the crumbsnatcher, but proved to be a lousy acoustic buffer. This kid literally babbled - LOUDLY - the whole entire flight. I will say that at least she didn't cry, but the mom really didn't encourage the kid to work on her shuttin' up skills, either. Which I strongly encourage all breeders - erm, I mean parents - to do when your rodents - uh, children - are in public with cranky non-breeders like me. Let's just say there's a really good reason I haven't reproduced, and it's not just to prevent more overpopulation.
I don't adore children, and I especially don't adore children who don't seem to have any rules given to them. There was a little boy seated behind me for a five and a half hour flight from San Fran last week, whose mother kept asking him permission to do things. I wanted to slap her. "Johnnie, we're going to have to sit still now, ok??" AAARRGH. No. That didn't work, not even a little bit. And for all y'all who are thinking, "But J, you don't have kids, you're not a parent, you don't understand...", I have one thing to say to you: BULLSHIT. (Wait, I have two things to say: what the hell are you doing reading my blog?) I WAS a kid, I've babysat hundreds of kids in my day, of varying levels of brattiness, and I remember what worked for me. You don't actually have to spawn to know certain things. Like, kids need rules. And you must teach them to respect you as a parent/adult, or they will grow up to be disrespectful little shits in a society that's already full of 'em. Parents do not need to be friends with their children. Not at the age of 3, anyway.
So back to my point, this little baby-doll-looking creature damn near split my left eardrum. That's really saying something, that she can actually hurt my ears above the whine of turbine jet engines. And the mom just sat there, not even remotely embarassed that her offspring was making people's ears bleed. Poor thing, she's probably already deaf herself and just didn't hear it. That's my theory, anyway.
But just because this kid is cute, that doesn't mean her behavior was ok. I didn't say anything, or even huff and puff and roll my eyes like I do when I get passive-aggressive mad, because I was in an ok kind of mood, and I felt bad for the mom having to travel alone with a little kid. Still doesn't make it ok, but I did my best not to make it worse for her. Actually, I gave her a magazine to read. Nothing like celebrity gossip to make you forget your troubles. And for those of you who are wondering why I didn't grab my noise-cancelling headphones, it's because it wasn't so bad until later in the flight, and I knew they'd be announcing our descent, and I'd have to take them off anyway. Just my luck.
So I finally make it to Chi-town, and pick up my rental car: it's some sort of Kia, a Rio or something. Which, ok, at least it's not a P.T. Cruiser, which makes me homicidal, but the friggin' thing has MANUAL ROLL-DOWN WINDOWS. And no automatic door locks. I'm not even kidding. I'm a Preferred member at Avis (oooooh, aren't I special!?), and this is what I get? Had I not been in a rush, and snow falling, and a ton of people at the counter, I might have gone back and asked for a better car. Instead, I'll just bitch when they send me the survey. But of course, they won't survey this rental. They'll wait until the one time a year I accidentally get a Cadillac or something, then ask me to complete the survey. That's always how it works.
No comments:
Post a Comment