• THE THING: Some plane flights I just had.
  
• THE HAIKU REVIEW:
        Getting on a plane
            is always an adventure.
                People frighten me.
  
• THE FULL REVIEW:
  I'm BAAAaaaaAAAACK!
  
  Sorry, everyone, for the break in writing. I only think about 3 people ever look at this Blog, so I could actually apologize to all of you personally. I was away for a little while, and just returned from a grandparental visit to South Carolina. There were 4 airplane flights required to get there (2 hops on the way down, 2 back). I feel kind of cheap and dirty complaining about air travel -- you might as well complain that the Arctic is chilly -- but there is Blogging to be done!
  
  First, I must whine about the process of getting on a plane. We were sitting towards the back of the plane on one of the legs of the trip, and they usually load up the plane starting from the back, so we were called to load ourselves up onto the plane pretty early on. First they call for people with special needs and 1st class, then they start with the high rows and move their way forward. This is for efficiency... the people heading for the back can cram their oversized luggage into the overhead rack -- it doesn't slow down the loading process.
  
  As we got on, my father noted, as we were waiting for someone in row 8 to cram his 6 foot tall garment bag into an overhead compartment, and looking around at the smattering of seats filled with bodies, "Why are all these people near the front already on the plane? I don't see any babies or people with special needs!" And he was right. As soon as they opened the plane, the people just went on as they felt like it. Why can't people just get on when they are called? This way, we don't all get squished into the front of the plane while some mushbrain tries to cram the entire inventory of the first floor of Macy's into a bin the size of a glove compartment.
  
  Perhaps I heard them wrong -- the public address system in Charlotte may have had a little static -- it might have said, "Now boarding flight 873 for Atlanta. We will start by boarding First Class, small children travelling alone, people with special needs, or any weenis who thinks he can just do whatever he damn well pleases, and will do whatever he feels like anyway." I know that dude in row 8 would have jumped up for that.
  
  On one of the legs there was another annoying human. He was sitting directly in front of me. He didn't bug me directly, but I sincerely felt for the flight attendants. He had a little trouble with his tray table. He tried to put his tray table up, and turn the little latch to hold it, but it only went over the tray a smidge, and when the plane started to taxi, it fell down towards him. He complained to the stewardess as we were heading for the runway. She asked him to hold it up for a minute until we take off and she would look at it in the air.
  
  My father was across the aisle, and noticed that a magazine was crammed up underneath the tray, and that was the cause of this man's woe. Dad pointed it out, but annoying little man didn't want to hear it at all. He just bit back, "NO! It's broken!" and proceeded to slam it against the seat in front of him with a vigor that the person in that seat could not have appreciated.
  
  Once we were in the air, the stewardess drifted back, and he went all sorts of ballistic: "THIS WON'T STAY UP!" Slam! Slam! Slam! "This is an FAA violation, you realize!" Slam! Slam! "You need to fix this immediately!" Slam! He said it with a tone that suggested that the entire situation was the fault of the flight attendant, and that she should whip out her tray fixing kit and repair it on the spot. She offered to reseat him bit he snarled, "I'm sitting with my family!" His wife and daughter were curled up like snails, seemingly trying to pretend he didn't exist.
  
  He had a newspaper with him, and decided that it would help if jammed the sunday edition of the New York times behind the tray table. He then slammed the tray up a few more times. If it wasn't broken before, bending the tray table around an inch and a half of crumpled newspaper took care of that.
  
  The plane landed, and he told his wife and 8ish year old child (who had a shirt on which said something like -- "All Night Slumber Party - Bring the boys and make some noise!!" I somehow couldn't find that age-appropriate) that he would "just meet them outside..." and he rushed off and left them there to wrestle with his luggage.
  
  I am stunned by any human that is that miserable. My jaw is still dropped open just a little bit. Dude, just off yourself if your life is that miserable and just exists to make everyone else miserable.
  
  Other than that, the flights were pretty good!