The Trauma of Travelling by Plane
The ordeal begins at the airport when you are waiting at your boarding gate. You can see your plane, the ground staff are in and out of the gate like worker bees, and according to the screen, your flight is on time. But you can't board yet. The ground staff chat among themselves, perhaps even sharing a little joke like, "hahaha these bitches aren't going anywhere til we decide they are". Then they tease you by bringing that microphone closer to their lips - only to say "passenger mumble mumble, mumble mumble to gate 25". Eventually priority passengers are invited to board but you can be sure those ground staff with the microphone will make sure that they take their time when it comes to boarding the herds in economy class.
So you are now on board and making your way down the narrow aisles to get to your seat. But alas you are stopped by an idiot who, in order to avoid paying for checked baggage, has brought his massive bag on as hand luggage. Now you do not need to have done higher grade maths to see that the area of that bag is greater than the available area in the overheard storage bins. But no, he will try force that bag in there like an ugly stepsister forcing her bunioned foot into that glass slipper. This holds up everyone trying to board and again when everyone is trying to disembark and he is struggling to get the bag without knocking someone unconscious with it.
You get to your seat and your heart sinks when you realise that you are sandwiched between two passengers who look as though they eat their feelings. The seats are already uncomfortable for someone like me who is 1.9 metres tall. No amount of vodka and sleeping pill cocktails will get me to sleep on an international flight and the pillows that are provided might as well be a stack of tissues.
The passengers on either side of you have no sense of personal space either. I feel like that scene from Dirty Dancing should feature as part of the safety demonstration video: "This is my space, this is your space...I don't go into yours, you don't go into mine...you gotta hold the frame!" Instead, you find one or both of the two steadily sliding over onto you as the flight goes on and with an elbow firmly planted on the arm rest on either side, you have no choice but to spend the flight with your arms crossed in a straightjacket position.
Once the doors are closed, the flight attendants politely ask passengers to switch off their electronic devices. But there is always that one passenger who is SO important, more important than the safety of the plane, they don't have to listen to instructions from a lowly flight attendant. So the wankers continue to chat or text away until they have to be asked a second or third time. This is usually also the time that the babies on board send a telepathic message to each other that it is time for them all to start screaming. Anyone travelling with infants should be confined to a separate (and preferably sound proof) section of the plane. Bring on the hate mail. I stand by my opinion.
You have to feel sorry for the flight attendants. They have to put up with so much on board, from the aforementioned assholes who ignore instructions to impatient passengers trying to squeeze around the food and drinks trolley and the body odour in between - all while wearing really ugly shoes. Shame man.
Speaking of the food trolley...what genius decides on what goes onto the menu? Beans, broccoli, and a shitload of carbs - ingredients for a gaseous explosion of epic proportions. On one flight the option was a chicken curry. Curry! In a confined space in which hundreds of people have to share two bathrooms. Seems like a great idea. On another flight there was a choice of beef or fish. Fish! As if there weren't enough stomach-turning smells floating around, I must now deal with the lingering odour of fish. Then I look around and see people scoffing down those meals, just about licking the remnants of the cream-based pudding (cream!) from the little foil containers and I'm thinking, "what are your stomachs made of?" while my stomach looks like I am in my second trimester.
Between the "delicious" rich and creamy food and nervous flyers, the bathrooms are always something to look forward to, aren't they? When you finally enter the tiny chamber, after waiting in a line reminiscent of queue at Clicks, you are welcomed with an odour of unidentifiable origins, toilet paper all over the floor and seat and what you pray is water splashed on the floor. When you exit and the smell reaches out to grab the next passenger in line, you feel the urge to yell "It wasn't me! It wasn't me!". Instead, you avoid eye contact and get back to your seat as quickly as possible.
And just when you think you are going to need a real straightjacket to make it through the remainder of the flight, the captain announces those magical words: "we have begun our descent". Of course, now that the fasten seatbelt signs are on, every second person decides to use the restroom, climbing over each other and dodging flight attendants who have switched to hyper-efficient mode.
The relief when that first set of wheels touches the runway is indescribable. The door opens, the flight attendants bid you farewell with their Stepford smiles while a gust of fresh air welcomes you to a new destination and a new adventure. And you think to yourself, "that wasn't so bad"...until you check in for your flight home and the nightmare begins anew.
Love this post! Hosing myself.
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