The Trip Part II

I work for a company that does business internationally.  A couple times a year, I get the opportunity to travel to Germany and sometimes Slovakia.  I very recently traveled to Germany and my travels this time are not one I will forget soon.  I have a few things to say to those that I encountered along the way:  This is Part II of my story…

To The Dude Sitting Next To Me:

Where do I start with you?  Perhaps if you are going to take your shoes off to be more comfortable; at least keep them under your seat.  I need all the room I can get, and having your shoes in my way only increases the number of times my knees get rammed with the drink cart.  May I also suggest odor eaters?  I think I could actually see the green cartoon stink lines rising from your feet.  Don’t worry, I wasn’t crying, my eyes were just watering from the burning sensation caused by your stench.  Peppi La Pu would have been proud.

Whether you think it or not, I have absolutely no interest in talking to you.  Shut up!!  Me turning away and pretending to sleep is not a signal for you to poke me and start a conversation.  I really don’t care that you got a really good deal on blue jeans and bought six pair.  No really, shut the f#$^ up!  Why don’t you turn the other way and talk to your wife!!  Perhaps she already knows that you have nothing interesting to say…

Electronics are kind of funny; hitting them really does nothing to make them work better.  I realize your audio and video were cutting in and out during your movie, so was mine, but hitting the screen does only one thing…piss off the person sitting in the seat ahead of you.  Yeah, she turned around and gave you a dirty look every time didn’t she?  That’s because it’s annoying.  While it did nothing for your movie, I’m positive you made yet another friend on that flight.

I would like to point out that my rib cage is not an appropriate place for your elbow.  The arm rest between our seats would be a better spot for it.  I lost track of the number of times that you jammed me in he ribs with your elbow.  If you are going to look at your cell phone every five minutes then put it in your shirt pocket.  It should have been obvious to you that reaching into your pants pocket to grab your phone resulted in elbow to rib contact.  Get a clue man!

It would be greatly appreciated that if you eat the airline food, you also have the after dinner breath mint that comes complementary with your meal.  Wow, what monster breath.  Gargling with water then spitting it back out into a clear plastic cup is just nasty and in no way helps the problem.  No one wants to see the little chunks of food that used to be stuck in your teeth floating around in your water cup!  When the flight attendant gags when taking it from you, that should be an indication you should have just swallowed it rather than putting it on display.

Most people try to sleep on a long flight…myself included.  Next time you decide to sleep after dinner, don’t turn you head toward your neighbor.  I don’t know if you are aware of your particular sleeping style but let me fill you in.  After falling asleep, your mouth drops open and you breathe deeply.  A smell that would gag a maggot emanates from the gaping hole in your face and fills the cabin area around you.  Holy moly!  ‘Passenger to flight attendant, emergency in section 2!  Need gas mask badly…’  If that weren’t bad enough, the drool running down your chin was dripping onto your shirt.  GAG!!  Oh, how disgusting.  If I had actually eaten dinner, I would have certainly lost it.  It would have been really nice had you not wiped the river off your face with the sleeve that was constantly bumping into me when grabbing your cell phone.  Ugg.

Finally, my head is not a staging area for every item you decide to take out of the overhead bin.  I swear, after we landed, you hit my head with everything you removed.  Your coat, your wife’s coat, your backpack, your briefcase, your wife’s roller bag…  You even hit me with a brief case that wasn’t even yours.  How do I know it wasn’t yours?  ‘Cause you cracked me in the back of the head when you put it back!  My head did not jerk forward because I had a sudden interest in my shoes!

To The Baggage Handlers:

I know that handling baggage at an airport is a thankless job.  However, baggage handling is not an Olympic event.  From looking at the contents of my suitcase after arriving at the hotel, I can just imagine how the games went.  It starts out with the hand off.  I give my bag to the very nice lady at the ticket counter.  Her role is to fill me with a false sense of security by shooting me a big smile as she puts the tracking tag on and sends my suitcase down the conveyor belt to the next stage.

The next event is randomization.  They prefer to call it a security check, but in reality, the purpose is to first irradiate everything with x-rays then scramble all the contents.  They start with the x-rays to kill anything that might be contagious.  Next, they open each bag and completely unpack it, then stuff everything back in as random an order as possible.  The player that has the most wrinkled dress shirts and the most randomized assortment of shirts, pants and underwear when finished wins.  I think my bag usually finishes in the top three in this event.

After passing the “security check” event, it moves on to loading.  This event is also known as the strongman contest.  The player that throws the baggage the farthest wins.  Of course, the baggage is normalized by weight and volume to make it fairer for everyone.  Heavier bags are worth more points per foot thrown than the light bags.  Denting and mis-shaping anything earns bonus points.
After arriving at the final destination, the last event is played out.  This is commonly known as compaction.  The goal of this event is to see just how compact the players can get the contents of the luggage.  By dropping each piece of luggage out of the plane and making it land flat on one side, they are able to super compact any item.  The player with the densest bag wins.

Only after opening my bag at the hotel do I get a feeling of how successful they have been.  They did an extraordinary well job this time with each event.  I'm positive my luggage will never be the same.

As always, thank you for taking the time to listen to my suggestions and taking appropriate action to make everyone’s travel experiences better in the future.

Yours Truely,

Slightly Dissatisfied Airline Passanger

Tags: Travel