LINE BUTTING AND OTHER TRAVEL PET PEEVES

Last week I was on travel to DC for work and I experienced one of my travel pet peeves twice – line butting. When you come upon a long line of people standing at the curb waiting for the shuttle do you really think we are standing there just for the hell of it? It really pisses me off when I have stood in line for two shuttles and this one jerk walks up, looks at us, and heads to the front of the line! I want to scream, “Hey! Jerk! Do you think this line is just for fun?” Instead, I stand there silently fuming like half the other line standers as the line butting jerk enters the shuttle first!

Another travel pet peeve I have is seating space on the airplane. Have you ever noticed no matter how fat or skinny you are you still end up squished hip to hip? This is not what bothers me, what bothers me is when the person whom you are temporarily attached to for a five hour flight acts as if you have some deadly disease and recoils from your leg or hip touch. Let’s be realistic here. You are on a plane in a seat with about 12 inches of space for your ass – some body part is going to make contact! Get used to it and deal with it! I refuse to hold my legs tight for five hours causing muscle cramping just so you aren’t touched by a stranger. If you are that OCD, then get a first class ticket!

The flight that I take home from DC is always over booked, so I expect to be uncomfortable on the flight. On one trip I had the misfortune of being seated in the middle seat – this is the worst seat to be in on a full flight and if you ask me is just the worst seat period! Anyway, as I boarded the plane I realized that the extremely large man seated in the aisle seat and taking up half of the middle seat was in my row! Not being a small person myself I knew this would be a fun trip and was praying for a skinny person to be seated in the window seat. Alas, it was not to be my fate as on walks this tall, big boned Polynesian woman indicating that she had the window seat. I was prepared to be totally miserable sandwiched in the middle seat for five long hours. Fortunately, the woman was very friendly and had no problem if any part of me touched her. In fact she apologized ahead of time for being squished and told me not to worry about touching. Finally a fellow traveler who understood the inevitability of being temporarily attached at the hip! Still, the trip was a miserable one because one side of me was suctioned to the big man from sweat! I know – gross! But it is true.