I hate flying

There is nothing worse to me than being stuck on a plane and my trip out to California for Christmas break was everything I hate about flying wrapped into one miserable morning. I left from Cleveland at 6:50am which was a brilliant start. I flew down to Cincinnati on a little plane which is always a little painful because the seats are smaller. But to add to my joy was that I got the seat at the very back of the plane which was bad for 2 reasons. 1st, you can’t recline those seats. I know that reclining only involves a 2 inch change in your vertical orientation but that 2 inch is a lot when you’re crammed into a 12 inch sitting area. 2nd, right across the isle from me was not another passenger, but every passenger on the plane had bowel issues during the flight because I got to sit next to the toilet. To top everything off on this leg of the flight was that the air blowing out of my feeble little AC was not cold but very warm. So that was my hot, poo-scented, non-reclining portion of my trip.

I managed to survive the first portion of my flight by taking off one side of my sweat shirt and wrapping it around my face. This let me avoid most of the smell, provide some sort of head rest, and cooled me off a bit.

After my layover we boarded our plane to San Diego. This was in a big plane and by luck I got a row with some extra leg room so I had hopes that I would be able to enjoy this portion of the trip more. To top it off the plane wasn’t too full so it looked like I’d have the row to myself. At the end of the boarding a woman came and sat next to me which didn’t bother me too much because it was obvious that it was just going to be the 2 of us and I figured she’d just slide over a seat once the doors closed. The doors closed, but no sliding. I suggested to her that now might be a good time to slide on over because obviously nobody else was coming, no sliding. Surely she would slide on over in a few minutes, no need to worry.

Now would be a perfect time for a huge snow storm to hit and cause us to sit on the runway for over an hour waiting for them to plow the runway and de-ice the plane. Yet again, no sliding by this woman despite my many hints that only an insane person would want to sit next to someone else on a plane when there’s an open seat right next to them. I have also figured out by this point that this woman doesn’t speak any English. But honestly, should that matter? There’s an open seat!! In what culture is that something to be avoided? To top this portion of my fight off the man in front of me has figured out that you don’t need head phones to listen to the music coming from the arm rest in the plane. All you have to do is turn up the volume all the way and everyone can enjoy your selection. I had ear plugs in and I could still hear his music with him singing right along.

We eventually took off and made our trip to San Diego while I had a strange little woman snuggled up to me who doesn’t speak any English and has a horrible case of body odor. After a few hours of trying to gesture to her and speaking loudly about how it was morally wrong to not take that open seat (that’s how you help someone who doesn’t understand what language you’re speaking miraculously understand you) I gave up on enjoying some personal space during the flight. At least I could watch the in flight movie and escape from my horrible reality for a while. To my joy I got to watch Hair Spray. There’s nothing better than having a smelly foreigner leaning on you, a guy blasting his arm chair music and dancing in front of you and getting to watch John Travolta in drag at 30,000 feet. So I say again, I hate flying.