Sunday, July 5, 2009

Airplane Ettiquette, Eating, Bastard Children, and Fat People!

I have a question... I have a solution... I have and issue and some commentary on that issue that came up today. I was sitting and talking with my brother who I don't see all that often and discussing various issues like we generally do on holidays and such. Most of what we discus centers around work since we both work in exactly the same field (which will remain unnamed).

Anyhow, we somehow got into the subject of flying, flights, airplane rides and the idiots in those airplanes. We both do and have done a lot of traveling as a requirement of our chosen careers. Fortunately for me I've taken a slightly different direction which has limited my travel to significantly less distance which rarely requires air travel. My brother on the other hand goes all over the country and then some still.

Our discussions and views are similar but with different approaches to dealing with them. He's much more willing to just sit and take it while I'm very likely to just turn around and inform you that you're an irritating asshole and you need to tone it the fuck down.

I have to give some examples in order to give you a bit of an idea what I mean. Far too many people just don't understand that they are in fact irritating or just ignorant.

Here's one example. Eating on a plane. If the flight is long they will give you the option of food. If they give you the option of food that's fine I can't argue with that. If the flight is short though and you don't get the option that's a different story. I'm sorry but you need to get your ass to the airport in time to eat before you get on the plane or learn to control your urges. I can't stand when people get disgusting fast food at the airport and then bring that foul smelling shit on the plane with them. I almost never eat fast food because it usually makes me sick, the smell is worse than the food itself.

On one flight I had some fat bitch bring a huge McDonald's breakfast on the plane and proceed to chow down beside me to the point it made me want to hurl. I know your big ass is hungry but that shouldn't be my problem. I'm not the one that made you not have enough time to eat before you got on the plane so why the hell should I and everybody else have to smell it for 4 hours?

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I had another guy bring a giant submarine sandwich on the plane and proceed to eat that beside me. It wasn't the fact that he was eating the sandwich but the fact that he didn't have the manners to shut the fuck up while he was doing it. This guy gnawed and gnashed his way through that thing like a starving farm animal while trying to carry on a conversation (that he started) with me the entire time. What this translates to is a combination of words and food flying out of his mouth resembling an oak tree being pushed through an industrial wood chipper. This is avoidable and unnecessary.

Some smells are avoidable and some are not. There are plenty of things on a plane that just can't be helped and there are some that passengers need to know better. I have two rules that should be absolute. If you're going to be flying you know you are going to be in tight quarters so be courteous to other passengers. Take a fucking shower before you get on the plane. I don't care if you don't ever shower other than that, get in a shower and scrub your ass like you've never scrubbed before if you're going to fly. After you've taken your shower put on some deodorant and leave it at that.

DO NOT put on half a bottle of cologne or perfume! Leave that shit at home. What smells good to you may not smell so good to the rest of us. Old ladies are the biggest offenders. Old lady perfume tends to smell like industrial floor cleanser, turpentine, and a hospital. Leave that fucking shit at home. Sense of smell apparently isn't so keen in the elderly either and that usually leads to the use of a half a bottle of this nasty shit and you can smell it 3/4 of a mile away. When you put that in a cramped airline cabin it chokes the rest of us half to death. Do not bathe in perfume and then get on a plane because I don't want to fly 4 hours with a migraine because of the horrific smells wafting off you!

Children on planes. I really don't like children, I don't discriminate, I don't like any children and yours are included. Some can pull off a long flight while being good and some cannot. Generally the smaller they are the worse they are. You know your kids, you need to have the common sense to know if you can control them and if you can't you have no business on a flight irritating the rest of us. I actually had a lady allow her kid to kick the back of my seat for 10 minutes straight on one flight. One time she asked him very nicely not to do that and when he failed to stop she simply began ignoring it.

Finally I got pissed off and turned around and told her in no uncertain terms to control that little brat and keep him from kicking the back of my goddamn seat. I don't remember my exact words but I wasn't nice at all because I was pissed off and sick of it. The bitch had the nerve to look at me like I was wrong and say "he's just a kid, he doesn't know better". I don't give a fuck if he's a kid or not, it's your job to teach him to know better if he doesn't, not to let him do it while somebody else suffers for it.

On top of this there are kids throwing fits and waling babies abound. I know you would like to go places but I really don't care. Babies will do what babies will do and this is why they don't belong on planes. The sound of that little bastard screaming for an hour is like a fork down a chalkboard for an hour. I can't get up and leave to get away from it and it's unfair to everybody who has to listen to it. Until the little brat is old enough to not throw random fits keep them out of planes. In the mean time, I propose that you have 10 minutes to shut that child up before a gag order is imposed on him/her.

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Finally, the fat people on planes issue. We've heard a lot about this one lately and it's for good reason. We all know how I feel about fat people, you made you fat, I didn't, so either deal with the consequences or do something about it. When you get on a plane, most of the time you pay the same amount I do and I'm not willing to share my seat with your fat ass. I don't want your spare tire taking up my arm rest and part of my seat. I shouldn't have to rest my arm on your belly!

You're basically paying for space. You should pay for exactly the amount of space that you take up. With air fares rising and body weights rising with it it's starting to cost all of us more to make up for your gigantic ass on the plane. You are the one causing more fuel to be burned and I can remember when I could take two bags on the plane as long as their weight was under a certain amount. Now I can only take one bag on the plane and must pay for the second and it's partly your fat-ass fault. Soon, and I think on some airlines, all stowed baggage is an extra cost because of this.

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This shit is fucking ridiculous! I'm alright with an individual having to pay for two seats if they're too big, if that's the way the airline wants to do it. I propose an easier idea. Price of flight should be based primarily on weight. There should be a set price to start out. At increments based on reasonable amounts of weight and seat size, etc., passengers should have their fare increased. When you buy your ticket you buy it based on a weight. When you get the the airport amongst the other shit they put you through you get on a scale and if it varies by enough (you're a liar) your price reflects it. If you weigh less your price may reflect that as well.

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A 300 pound man should be paying significantly more than a 150 pound man because if no other reason it costs significantly more to transport him. The same thing happens with little notice in a car. If you're bigger you'll burn a lot more gas and so will the plane. This increase based on weight could also carry over into the fact that if you weigh enough you should have to pay for the seat beside you as well. You may have to pay the base rate for two passengers or more if you're big enough and that's nobody's fault but your own.

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There is absolutely nothing discriminatory about this. If you're fat and alright with that then fine by me but don't expect me to give you or pay for special treatment for you because you can't stop eating. This country has gone and is still going far past the line with the constant entitlement culture that we've allowed to thrive. It's about time people start getting put back in their place and realize the world does not revolve around them. When you're in a public place or a public flight, etc., you are the one who needs to conform and not the other way around.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I must add that the fat person who sat next to me on a Reno-Chicago flight somehow thought t-shirt, sweatpants and flip-flops are now the norm for travel wear. It probably is. The departure lounge looked like a Wal-Mart checkout line on a muggy day.

Northman said...

Yeah, sadly the majority of the country seems alright with looking slovenly or downright dumpy. The response is usually "I have nobody to impress". One never knows when they may cross paths with somebody that may have been beneficial to impress. There is a time and a place for wearing your couch potato clothes but that place is almost always on the couch. I think the slack-ass manner of dress is simply an unfortunate symptom of the "I don't give a shit" attitude that the majority of our nation has adopted these days.

LL said...

I almost always fly business/first class unless it's a puddle-jumper flight with no business/first class seats.

This means that I usually get a meal, the seats are more comfortable and most kids don't sit in first class. Yes, the seats are more expensive, but I pay for distance between myself and other passengers, for silence and to have my ass kissed by the flight attendant.

Northman said...

I should just pay to upgrade myself but my company used to get bitchy about me screwing with what they planned. That would be one way to do it, you're right. My gripe I suppose is the bottom line of the slobbering masses lacking etiquette and or proper manners.