Airplane!

Airport security. That’s an oxymoron, isn’t it? Case in point: The last time I traveled via airplane, I tried a little experiment. I did my patriotic duty and allocated all my dangerous chemical substances like shampoo, deodorant, and lotion to 3 ounce bottles in one…and only ONE…quart size clear plastic bag. When I got to security, I even removed it from my bag for the security guards to examine, along with my shoes, belt, watch, sweatshirt, laptop, dental records, urine sample, medical history, mother’s maiden name, fingerprint card, and political party affiliation. However, in order to test the credibility and efficacy of these security precautions, I left a cigarette lighter and a book of matches in my purse. So I walked through the metal detector, silently praying the button on my jeans or the iron in my blood wouldn’t set it off, and waited patiently for my belongings to finish their ride through the x-ray machine. The security staff stared intently and dutifully at the video monitors, presumably visually combing through all items that could potentially harm innocent travelers, personnel, planes, or democracy. A brief pause here and there hinted at their spotting of at least the lighter, but, to my complete lack of surprise, out came my purse, still chock full of incendiary devices! The thing that made it that much more ridiculous, was that a man in an adjacent line was being reprimanded for not putting his anti-bacterial hand gel in a clear plastic bag. Thank God he was put in his place…I’d hate to be on an airplane with the threat of being sanitized to death lingering at the back of my already paranoid mind. But, of course, if he were to go on a rampage of obsessive disinfecting, I’d be able to fashion a makeshift flamethrower with overpriced beer or alcohol and my trusty lighter and fend off the maniacal bastard. Dear airport security, stop nitpicking toiletries and start doing your jobs. Love, Britny.
So once you get past the joke that is airport security, you’re on your way to the next leg of your travels…duty free shopping. Ok, so that’s not really worth discussing, but I will say the magazine selections are impressive…the soda selections, however, are not. You find your gate, park yourself and all your carry-on stuff in a bench style cantilevered leather chair, hopefully in a spot with at least one empty chair between you and the nearest person, because you really aren’t in the mood to speak to anyone at this point. Once you’ve sat for what feels like an eternity, you realize you have to use the restroom before you board the plane. You are suddenly acutely aware of the fact that you are alone and lack a traveling partner to watch your things while you’re away for approximately 3 and a half minutes. You would ask that seemingly harmless person sitting a couple seats away to watch your things, but it’s safe to assume based on what the news and that eerie computerized voice on the PA system has told you, that person is a terrorist. And that terrorist has a plethora of explosives, firearms, and stabbing weapons hidden in his daughter’s hello kitty rolling suitcase (as if that’s fooling anyone), and he’s just itching to stuff it all in your backpack the second you turn your head. So you refrain from requesting his help, and load all your bags onto your already tense shoulders, and haul it to the restroom, which always seems to be a little too far away. Now comes the hard part. The narrow stall proves a formidable obstacle upon entering…the jostling and struggling shakes the flimsy, hollow walls, but finally you manage to shut the door. Your relief at this accomplishment is short-lived when you see that the hook on the door for hanging the bags has at some point ripped off and 3 misshapen holes stare you in the face, mocking your disgust at having to place your luggage on the icky floor…oh to have some of that dangerous sanitizing hand gel instead of this stupid, harmless, useless cigarette lighter…oh well. Anyway, you resign yourself to the inevitable filth and stack your things as neatly as possible on the floor, you do your business, and quickly retrieve the bags before that puddle, that seems to be getting bigger somehow, reaches them. Now exiting the stall. The door really should be designed to swing outward, AWAY from the toilet, but I guess that would be too inconvenient for all those poor people, you know, washing their hands and stuff, so the doors open inward, forcing you to stand on or in the toilet in order to get the door open wide enough to maneuver yourself and all your stuff back through it. I myself am an expert in airport bathroom contortionism. You finally make it back to the gate, only to find your seat has been stolen, and even though that buffer seat is still empty, you choose to stand rather than sit that close to other people…after all, you’re going to be doing that for the next 4 hours anyway…why start now? Boarding begins and you take the long trek down the jet way toward the source of your physical and psychological pain for the next several hours. As you make your way toward your seat, you cast woeful and bitter (but discreet) glances at the first class passengers, silently cursing them for having more money than you and hoping that overly pampered baby behind them cries uncontrollably the whole flight and the towel warmer malfunctions and they have to dab their stupid wealthy faces with lukewarm towels. What’s that? Your complimentary champagne went flat? Take THAT, high rollers! Finally you find your seat, thank God you were lucky enough to get the coveted aisle, and you stuff your larger bag in the overhead bin, awkwardly apologizing to everyone behind you for holding up the line and in doing so, take even longer than you would have had you just put the damn bag in the bin and kept your mouth shut, then sit down, most likely directly on the metal buckle of the seatbelt, jarring your tailbone…that’s gonna feel GREAT later. Well, at least I never really use my tailbone unless I’m sitting…oh wait…shit. Wiping a tear from your eye, you watch as more passengers file by, evaluating each one, determining which ones you would definitely NOT want to sit next to. That guy is too fat, that woman is wearing an unnecessarily large hat, that little boy probably smells like vomit and Oreos, that woman looks like she wants to have a really long, inane conversation about travel or Christianity...nope, none of these people are satisfactory row mates. But oh dear…what’s this? A loud, eccentric looking couple is headed you way. You glance at the 2 empty seats next to you, then glance back at the couple, chatting like lunatics. You do the math. You feel your doom. Sure enough, you get to sit next to these hyenas, and of course they immediately try to strike up conversation with you. You smile and oblige with a few minutes of polite small talk, all the while yearning for the safety presentation to start so you can think of an escape. Finally the flight attendant appears with the familiar seatbelt and life jacket, telling us for the billionth time how these impossibly simple contraptions function. I have a suggestion for that little spiel- this is how it should go: “In the event of a crash, neither this nor this will save you. You will die. Horribly.” Moving on, now that you have a brief reprieve from the Chatty McChattersons, you pull out your ipod and shove in your ear buds, fully aware the battery is completely dead, and pretend to listen to music because you can’t bear to fall back into conversation about how hot it is in Arizona and how hot it isn’t in Minnesota. Duh. Silence is sweet when the alternative is idiocy. Now the plane has pushed back and takeoff is imminent, and you begin to become aware of just how uncomfortable this journey is going to be.
Air travel. The wave of the future. One of man’s most astounding achievements. We were not given the gift of flight, so we built contraptions that allowed us that ability. Humankind has such an amazing ability to inquire, to conceive, to build, to design, to invent, to advance…and yet we can’t figure out how to make a freaking airplane seat comfortable? Sure, those business class/first class jackoffs get to lounge in ultra-wide leather sofas or recliner/bed transformer monstrosities, but that’s not what I’m talking about when I say airplane seats. I’m talking about coach. Where the vast majority of people sit (the word ‘vast’ here having more than one meaning regarding people, but that’s a whole other pit of despair we’ll discuss later). I know there are people out there applying physiology, anatomy, ergonomics (which is just a fancy term for ‘making sure our ever expanding asses will fit in this lump of foam and leather’ as far as I can tell), and other human sciences to the development of adequate seating apparatus for commercial airlines, but I have to wonder if these people actually ever SIT in the furniture they create. Sure, they might compute a bunch of computations in their computers and graph a few graphs on their graphing calculators (I don’t really know what they do, honestly), but do they ever just sit in a chair for 3, 5, maybe even 8 hours just to see if that seat in front of them leans back just a little too far (making it necessary to shift their knees at an awkward angle which only gets more awkward as time passes…ever so slowly)? Do they ever attempt to sleep in the chair (to approximate what it might be like on a red eye) and try to figure out why, once you’re juuuust getting ready to nod off, your head, completely independent of support, snaps violently forward, jerking you awake? By the end of the flight, you’re head has flopped uncomfortably in every direction except backwards onto a comfy pillow, your neck muscles are stiff and sore, and you’ve gotten approximately 13.8 minutes of sleep, most of which involved some degree of droolage you tried to hide with that nonchalant brush of the hand over the lips or somewhat less than discreet rubbing of the cheek on the now tense shoulder, all the while the equally uncomfortable passenger next to you knows exactly what you’re doing and takes some comfort in witnessing another persons’ misfortune because he or she is just as miserable as you are. Do these people measure the degree of numbness experienced in the buttocks and attempt to design seats that allow for better circulation to the hindquarters area? Because really, I’m going to need those butt-cheeks later…I plan on using them to walk my sore ass off this damn plane as fast as I possibly can. I’m really not asking for much, people. Just 2 more inches of legroom would do wonders for both the recliner and reclinee. A headrest with padded retractable wings would allow for more pleasant head position whilst sleeping, not to mention provide a nifty little shield to hide that inevitable drool from your neighbor. As far as the numb-butt issue, that appears to be unavoidable, but may I put forth my idea of Sky-Clench? Sky-Clench: A 10-15 minute block of time set aside on each flight over 90 minutes during which the flight attendants lead the passengers in a rigorous session of butt-clenching in an effort to revive circulation and alleviate the discomfort of what I like to call “flat bottom syndrome.” But anyway…in the midst of the torture that is sitting in coach, you feel a slight tinge of relief when you notice the flight attendants readying the drinks trolley. Oh joy! Something to nibble and sip and keep my mind of the hell that is this aluminum tube of discomfort. Ever so slowly, the cart inches toward your row…perhaps row 16 or 17, but regardless of the number, it’s most likely the row right next to the wing, so your poor ears are subjected to the roar of jet engines for the entirety of the flight, but I digress. Finally, the refreshments arrive! By this time, you’ve already lowered the tray table, which probably sits slightly askew (and has ever since that woman thought it would be a good idea to use it as a changing table for her screaming infant), in anticipation of the goodies. You extend your eager hand, expecting a mini package of pretzels, peanuts, or airplane shaped crackers to be generously placed within it. Instead, you are given merely a napkin and told if you wish to purchase a meal, your choices are an 11 dollar Asian chicken salad, a 7 dollar ham sandwich, or a 5 dollar “fun box” filled with tiny versions of snacks you could have bought in the airport before the flight that were 4 times larger and a quarter of the expense. Wow! That really IS fun!! Thanks. Jerks. After having your heart crushed by the lack of food, you settle for a soda (because you won’t shell out 5 dollars for warm beer, even though you’d kill for some booze right now…you have principles), only to be disappointed yet again when you are told you can’t have the entire can, but only that little 6 ounce cup, 3 ounces of which are ice. So there you are. Sitting on a plane that’s too old, in a seat that’s too small, with a headrest that’s too absent, with legs that are too long and a butt that’s too numb, next to a person who’s too judgmental of your drooling problem, not eating anything, sipping your itty-bitty beverage worried you might, in fact, die of dehydration as a result of this injustice, all the while wondering in the back of your mind if you really need/want to go to Hawaii or Paris or New York or Milwaukee or wherever you happen to be headed.
As you begin to drift off into a beautiful daydream in which you’re simply sitting at home in that old recliner chugging a carbonized kiddie pool from 7 eleven, the PA system clicks on and the pilot (in that airline pilot voice that seems to be the same on every single flight) informs the despondent passengers that we are approximately 1600 miles from our destination…thanks Mr. Pilot Voice Man…why don’t you keep that kind of nausea-inducing information to yourself, mmmkay? Good thing we have these nifty little barf bags in the seatback cushions which have probably been there since the 70s, along with dozens of stale peanuts (from back when they gave you peanuts) and the catalog selling bug vacuums and yoda backpacks. On second thought, I think I’ll choke it down and wait to throw up in a receptacle more deserving of my upchuck…like a toilet. And not the maddeningly tiny airplane toilet in an even more maddeningly tiny airplane bathroom. Oh, you have to go to the bathroom? Well, we have 4 matchbook sized compartments in the plane in which we’ve squeezed thimble sized toilets and pinhead sized sinks, 2 of which are all the way at the back of the plane where people seem to always be standing in line and it always seems to smell a little like Satan’s armpit, and the other 2 are all the way up in the front of the plane, but because that location requires that you walk back past those first class a-holes and witness their unhindered sleep and uncrushed patellae, you opt for standing in a stinky line, relegated to the rear of the plane like a modern day airborne Rosa Parks. This may be the one instance in which you actually dread arriving at the front of the line because that means you have to utilize the facilities once you get there. So you get to the door. You ready your tetanus shot and antibacterial hand gel you borrowed from that terrorist behind you and secure your elbow pads and nose plugs. You’re goin’ in. Once inside, the first thing you must do is plaster the tiny seat with tissue- this takes a few minutes because the tissue is actually little squares of 5 inch by 5 inch transparent paper that feels a bit more like something you’d rather wrap a Christmas gift in than wipe your ass with, but you’re not going to complain because at least there’s something to use. Once you’ve adequately covered the bacterial breeding ground that is an airplane toilet, you prepare yourself for this undignified ritual, adding a few fresh bruises to your knees and elbows in the process of unbuttoning your jeans and plummeting somewhat less than gracefully onto the cold seat. Once finished, you flush the toilet, watching as that odd blue syrup whisks away your waste and wonder where the hell it goes then quickly tell yourself you really don’t care to know. Turning to look at the sink, you notice there is no soap, only one damp and mangled paper towel dangling from the dispenser, and a small sign indicating the water is not potable (prompting you to wonder who in his/her right mind would ever want to drink something from that disgusting little Petri dish masquerading as a sink). The whole idea of even having a sink in the first place seems ludicrous because if the water is not suitable for drinking, why would it be suitable for cleaning our hands? This thought further prompts you to wonder if you just solved that little mystery of where the toiled flushes go, but you shake your head, refusing to believe the airline industry would sink THAT low…but decide to use that hand gel…just in case. You stumble clumsily back to your seat (because regardless of how smoothly the flight is going, you always seem to be off balance) and right as your sore bottom hits the cushion, the captain’s voice crackles once more over the speaker. Holding your breath for bad news, you are delighted instead to hear that you are nearly to your destination. Never before have the words, “we are starting out initial descent” sounded so sweet.