I thought the following was pretty funny and fairly true. Read and enjoy.
Since this is holiday travel season and there are many people who will be traveling by air, I thought this might be a good time to provide a needed service to society by identifying ten of the worst violators of airplane etiquette. If you happen to fall into one of more of these categories, please do not take this as a personal attack but merely as a call for you to get a clue and act accordingly.
1. The Backwhacker – potentially one of the most dangerous critters to board a plane. These are folks who board with a 50 pound backpack extending a good three feet to the rear. Rather than take it off, they wear it proudly and ignorantly down the aisle, oblivious to the fact that every time they turn their head they are in danger of decapitating those in aisle seats as they pass.
2. The Absentee Parent – we have all experienced the sound of infants who cry and scream uncontrollably on a flight. It could be their little ears hurt, or perhaps they are just frightened or uncomfortable. As unpleasant as those times may be, most of us understand that this is part of life with an infant. What gets my goat, however, are parents who allow their kids to run up and down the aisle unattended, constantly kick or pound the seat of the person in front of them, or grab hair, ears and other loose body parts of fellow passengers while the parents does and says nothing. Parents who are simultaneously blind, deaf and brainless should probably not be allowed to fly with small children.
3. The Dirty - going casual while flying is one thing; going days without a shower is quite another. Most people (myself included) dress casually on a flight when possible. Casual is not sloppy, indecent or just plain dirty.
4. The Nasty – These people are impossible to satisfy. They were mad at the counter agent when you were in line behind them. They are upset with the flight attendant. They whine and complain about absolutely everything and have not a single positive comment to contribute. Smile? Forget it!
5. The Hyper-socialized – Never met a stranger! Never met a person they weren’t convinced would be fascinated with the most mundane details of their lives. Not only do they want to carry on a conversation, they are obsessed with wanting to completely sync with you so that by the time the flight touches down you have not missed a single detail of their absolutely boring and insignificant lives.
6. The Loud Mouth – a variation of the hyper-socialized. They have all the characteristics of the former except they speak and project in a voice loud enough that no one for five rows all around can possibly miss a word even with noise-canceling headphones firmly in place. They never stop talking and they never lower their voice a single decibel.
7. The Clueless - everyone has to take their first flight sometime. Why does it have to be on my flight, and why do they have to be in front of me in line? Or, maybe they fly every month and are just slow learners. In the security line, they don’t know they are to put all creams, liquids and gels in a plastic, quart-sized, zip-lock bag and take it out. They don’t know they are supposed to take out their laptop, take off their shoes and put their overcoat in the tray. They also don’t know they are supposed to take change, cell phones and car keys out of their pockets. They are amazed that there are no exceptions to these rules, even for them. And for some reason they want to engage the TSA agent in conversation about the weather and their kid’s high school football game while going through the metal detector for the third time. Just wait until they board the plane and try to find their seat!
8. The Seat-Floppers – You are trying to finish up a few lines on a legal pad or note card when the 350lb. individual in front of you decides to flop down in the seat attached to your tray. Such people do not sit down; they flop down, flop being the verb that combines the actions of fall, slop, drop and collapse. No sooner have they flopped into the seat vertically, they now horizontally flop it backwards into your lap, so close you could easily give them a shampoo. There they remain until the flight attendant finally taps them on the final pass before takeoff to raise their seat back to the full, vertical upright position. As soon as the aircraft wheels separate from the tarmac, they are back in your lap, seemingly unaware that their seat is connected to the rest of the aircraft.
9. The Seat-Springers - This is a variation on the Seat-Flopper. They tend to be elderly, but not necessarily limited to this demographic. These folks, also unaware that seat backs are connected to the other parts of the plane, grip the back of the seat as they pass by on the aisle, or as they get up out their own seat. Their weight pulls your own seat back down until they decide to release it, at which point your seat back springs back up launching your head like a smooth stone out a sling. abruptly ending your nap.
10. The Throne Sitters – You have been nervously wondering who would occupy that middle seat next to you, visibly relieved as each double-wide individual passes your row and heads further back. Finally, a thin, petite person asks permission to slip into that middle seat. You thank God for his mercy, thinking that you have escaped. Then, you suddenly realize that a throne sitter has arrived. Size matters not as your neighbor sits back razor-straight in the seat and thrusts his or her elbows out to each side as though a monarch sitting on a gilded throne. It is as if that person is determined to punish the window and aisle individuals on either side for being so fortunate as to have avoided the dreaded middle seat. They are determined that the elbow of the person on either side will never make contact with even a square inch of the arm rest from takeoff to touchdown.
This is not intended to be an exhaustive list. There are only the flight monsters that come to mind from my most recent flight. I have confidence in you that you can add to the list. Let me hear from you!
