I keep waiting to blog about this past weekend in washington until I get some pictures emailed to me from my sister or parents. Then I remembered that my parents were out of town (and I haven't asked for any pictures from my sister either). But we did have a great visit in the tri-cities - cat land caused some minor allergy problems, but coming back to sunny so cal seemed to do the trick. So - until I get some pictures - you get to hear about the awesome guy who sat next to me on the plane.
I have this fun little game I play where I attempt to ALWAYS get whole row to myself on every flight. If not a whole row - at the very least a row with no person in the middle. This is accomplished by always going on-line to check in and change my seat assignment the day of the flight - you get to see where all the other taken seats are and select accordingly. I don't have the patience to get to the airport early enough to check in with a ticket agent and request an emergency exit row seat - they're the best - but I'm not that tall so its not that important.
On my flight to seattle I employed my early on-line check-in strategy and got a seat in the front row of coach all by myself - the front row means you get to put your feet on the wall and pretend that your seat is comfortable. This is good for flights under 3 hours - longer than that and you'll wish you could stretch out a little more. This row is also good on a full flight because you can have a window seat (necessary for sleeping), but can still get up and get to the isle without making everyone between you and aisle stand up!
On my flight back to long beach - same tactic - same seat. Unfortunately the row was full this time - still ok - can still get to the bathroom and can still put my feet on the wall. Only downside to this row...the arm rests also don't move (they contain tray tables instead). That turned out to be a blessing on this flight. I'm pretty sure my personal space would have been even more violated if they armrests were movable.
So - this kid sits down next to me, by kid I mean 18-19. I guess this age because he smelled like cigarette smoke (AWESOME) and because his carry-on was a very empty NASCAR duffel bag - the kind normally used for giveaways at events - like say a NASCAR race his uncle went to then decided to give the kid the bag. He didn't want to put it in the overhead for some reason, but they made him since there's no seat in front of us to push it under (however the woman in the isle just shoved her purse under the seat she was sitting in - the guy behind her must not have cared. Anyway - back to my story - I normally wear my headphones on planes so that no one talks to me, I don't' need to hear about your trip, or what you think of the scenery etc...i left my ipod at home though because I'd forgotten to charge it - this will never happen again. First he asks me if I'm scared. I assume he means scared of flying so I answer no. [I have recently developed a fear of lemurs though - see video below.] He tells me he is then proceeds to push all the buttons, look out the window by leaning well over my seat etc...I move a bit to put on my seat belt and he says "oh - there's seat belts on the big planes too" my response - UH YEAH - to which he says - I thought it was only the little planes, I'm flying from eugene, and there were weather problems this morning so i couldn't go straight to phoenix, so I had to come to seattle first and I've been stuck in seattle for 8 hours waiting to get a flight to long beach see I was supposed to fly from eugene to phoenix to long beach but now I had to wait in seattle all day i hope my grandma got my message and isn't waiting at the airport how big is the long beach airport is it really big? I say no it's tiny. (short answer usually illicit fewer additional questions - not this guy though - he was nervous and he was going to talk - seemingly in one really long sentence). Oh ok - its not big, i hope i can find her when we land, how long do you think it will be til we land (we haven't taken off yet) - the lady next to him answered so he starts talking to her...i now pretend to sleep for a while until I actually fall asleep
Flash forward about 2 hours into a 2.5 hour flight. I wake up and ask for some water when the flight attendant asks me if I'd like anything since i was asleep when she came around before. He seems amazed that no money exchanges hands and then asks for some water for himself - she brings it. I take out my tray table - which in his eyes - magically appeared out of my arm rest. And he asks how i knew it was there, he never would have known it was there - wow - amazing. I say I fly a lot. He asks me again if I'm nervous - he noticed I was sleeping - which must mean I don't get nervous, he gets really nervous. I say I'm not - then wonder if he was watching me sleep - ewwww. The pilot comes on and says there's going to be a little turbulence going back into Long Beach because of the rain so make sure we have our seat belts on and even asks the flight attendants to prepare the cabin then take their seats earlier than normal. Now this FREAKED this guy out - which for some reason meant he needed to have both arms on his middle seat armrests which also meant his arm was flush against my side for the whole last 1/2 hour of the flight! Good times. I kept sort of moving to see if he'd notice but he was unfazed. Then he asked me if he could turn his phone on - i said I didn't think he was supposed to - he asked if I thought he could turn it on and then quickly switch it to airplane mode so he could play games. I said I think he was supposed to do that before we took off, and that the flight attendants who were still walking around weren't going to want to see him turning on his phone...I just didn't feel like having the conversation anymore. But he was insistent.
When you land in long beach it usually means you get to about L.A. and then the plane goes out over the water and you get a pretty cool view of Catalina Island and then the LB and LA ports and all the boats coming in. Well he did not like this....are we over the water? it looks like we're over the water? why would we have to go over the water? Do you think there are problems? I tell him that landing in long beach always goes like this - it'll be fine, the airport is only about a mile or two inland we'll be there soon. All the while still trying to get him to stop touching me! He didn't. We finally land - he keeps trying to stand up while we're still taxing - like he's going to get off the plane sooner - we're already in the first row - how soon does he need to get off. I think his standing triggered others to stand and the flight attendant had to tell everyone to sit back down - this guy was classic!
Now in his defense he's pretty young and obviously hasn't flown much, especially since 9/11 I assume, but he wasn't cute in his fear, he was annoying and never stopped talking never stopped touching me, and I'm pretty sure never stopped staring at me while I slept - probably waiting for me to wake up so he could talk to me. UGH. I hope he found his grandma. Maybe she brought him some cookies or something.
Anyway - I might have to rethink my airline seat strategy - now see below for scary lemurs - best if played with sound.
Dramatic Lemur
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