Just when you’re getting good and relaxed toward the end of vacation, reality beckons, the real world encroaches and other people do things to remind me that there are too many people in this world who are pigs.
I don’t say that to insult pigs. Heck, I grew up on a hog farm, so pigs are my friends. But all you have to do is get off of a plane after an eight-and-a-half hour transcontinental flight to know that the more you pay for that airline ticket, the more you feel you have a right to throw trash all over the floor of the Boeing 777 while suspending the rules of common human decency.
Personal space? Well, that’s just not even an option as anyone who has flown knows, but do people have to do things to make it worse? You know the ones — they recline their seats for the duration, kick the back of your chair until turbulence becomes a welcome diversion and then reach over you and smack you in the face to get their bags out of the overhead bin without even trying to squeak out a little “excuse me.”
Don’t get me wrong — the PunditMom family had a lovely vacation and I have several extra pounds from the food and the wine to prove it. But all that time in close quarters with a few hundred strangers made me realize that whether I continue to travel will be less impacted by ridiculous gas prices, the cost of airline tickets and all the new fees and will be more directly related to the lack of civility at 30,000 feet.
So is calling the traveling public a group of pigs a bit harsh? Probably. But maybe it will get some people’s attention. Or I could just be delusional. I’ll let you know when I get on the airplane for BlogHer next week.
And for the lady who was on my flight yesterday who doesn’t know that airplane etiquette requires that if you hit someone in the face you have to at least pretend to be sorry, I’ll be preparing a special revenge for the next time we share a plane.
July 7th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
People have gotten so rude and act like slobs who have never been in public before once on an airplane. it drives me nuts!
July 7th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
If natural disasters bring out the best in people, air travel reveals their baser side.
I hate air travel.
July 7th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I really hope my flight to Blogher is uneventful and that my seatmates are pleasantly benign. Then again, I am the most feared traveler as I’ll have an infant with me.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:45 am
So sad. I must say, we traveled on a ferry from Maine to Nova Scotia, and the people, travelers and crew, were wonderful. Any lesson from that?
I do feel sympathy for those who make their living as flight attendants. They have to put up with sooooo much.