Love-Hate – This describes my relationship with commercial travel on airplanes. Actually it would have to be hate-love as the dominant emoticon is not love. Sure, I love getting from one place to another in hours instead of days or weeks. Yes I am still amazed that lift + thrust overcome drag and gravity. But love is fleet of foot when applied to travel.
Sitting on this flight from SFO to Baltimore, will produce an admittedly jaded description of a day in the life of a frequent traveler. I start the day doing a little mental “pre-flight checklist”. What time is the flight ? 3 pm…OK so if I leave the house at exactly 1:15 it takes 60 minutes to get to the airport. I can bumble shoe-less through security in 15 minutes. Did I get a rental car, hotel, and did I pack the clothing that I’ll need? Check.
30 minutes before I have to leave, creative avoidance takes hold of my mind. I can make one last conference call or maybe knock out those 50 emails I skipped over this morning. 10 minutes left till I walk the green mile to my car and drive to the airport. Hey wait. My wife said she thought the dimmer switch in the hallway smoked last time she used it…I have plenty of time left to change that out.
Shoot, now it’s 1:30 - I better jam to the flight. I drive as if my windshield is on fire and only speeds over 75 can extinguish the flames. I get to the airport, park, and start the frequent travelers aerobic walk to find the vintage TV screens with barely discernable numbers indicating the gate the flight is leaving from. Always – it is at the end of some concourse that is just across the next county line.
Once at the gate, you gotta look cool, must appear busy, so I check all 4 emails on my handheld and it’s time to board. As we board the flying cigar tube passengers fight to claim the overhead luggage space. There’s more elbows and shoving than Church Basketball to get that precious real estate under your luggage. The flight attendants always ask you to stow one piece of luggage under the seat in front of you, grinning maliciously - knowing to do this means you have to keep your legs folded – calves to thighs for 5 hours.
The in-flight takeoff video has this make believe movie about attendants fluffing pillows, helping you adjust your seat and serving you as if you were a valued customer. Smiles and space await these fairy tale passengers, who smile back and doze peacefully between 4 course meals.
As the video ends, we return to Dante’s inferno. The trolls in airline uniforms walk the aisle with a strut that belies their prison guard training. They bark commands to the newly arrived prisoners…I mean passengers… seatbelts – turn that phone off, not airplane mode you clod, OFF and I mean it, Achtung !
Sitting in this glorious coach seat brings me back to memories of my youth. Very early youth, like my original birthday, as the seats are designed to keep you in the fetal position, aka “full and upright position for takeoff and landing”. Why is the back of the seat curved so that my posture is permanently cast into the stoop shouldered elderly Osteoporosis patient’s position?
Lucky for me I have someone in front of me who thinks I need a head support, as he has cleverly laid his seat back to place it directly under my chin. The armrest cushions are made of some brake-pad hard material and the non-adjustable reading light is pointing to the North Star. The meal tray, or as I call it, the sloping plastic drink spiller, is laughing at me…taunting me to try and set a laptop on its slick back. I am reminded why they’re called laptops and can attribute that same descriptor to my Coke and bag of what-cha-ma-call-its. Sure, the bag says pretzels but the taste says salted newspaper.
I endure the remainder of the uncomfortable flight watching a 1950’s black and white movie about WW2 destruction in Europe, complete with sad violin music playing on the headset. It’s as if the airline is subliminally telling us – “so you think this flight is bad?” Magically the evil spell is broken as we land. The business class passengers are let off the barge first and then us “coachies” are paroled and allowed to exit.
The final words from our captors are “Thank you for flying and come again”. Watch them closely though as there are sharp teeth behind those smiles.
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