flying frenzy

Stop what you’re doing and read this. Flying has to be the weirdest human normalcy. I know that’s sort of ironic, something normal being weird. But millions of people fly everyday and yet every aspect of it is weird. Hear me out.

1- goodness forbid that you want to pay for your cab ride on the way to the airport with a credit card. I always get this slumped over, humph, when the driver has to go into their ___ and pull out the machine, type in the payment and wait for a mere 2 minutes. I’m sorry – I can keep my money if you’d like.

2- the zones. oh airlines calling people by zone number. I love watching it, everyone checking their ticket multiple times yet still going up too early. OR someone running to the flight gate, obviously holding everyone else up and you can see they just bought a starbucks coffee. So you have to run to the gate, but no no, go ahead, please don’t forget to wait in line to purchase your coffee.

3- you get on the plane. start walking down the aisle, and those that are already sitting in a row with an empty seat beside them… they hold onto their purse tight, and give you that pensive look as you start counting the row numbers looking down to your ever exciting seat. You can almost hear them hoping in their head “not here, not here”. Especially if they’re sitting in the aisle and you have to go into the window. That’s just another case of going at the wrong zone number.

4- and then we all turn into children. Flight attendants having to go up and down the aisle reminding grown humans to tuck in your bag, turn off your phone, take out your earphones. The patience they have! On my flight today an attendant had to tell an adult 3 times to turn her phone off, she wasn’t even trying to hide it-blatently on a call, and the attendant did it with a smile. Praise you!

5- the window checkers. I always book a window seat. I like to rest my head, take a nap and I find it more comfortable on this side.  What really grinds my gears, the aisle seat chooser who is doing everything but sitting on your lap, to look out the window. If seeing out the window was a necessity to your flying experience, BOOK A WINDOW SEAT. Enough said about that.

6- this is the weirdest of them all. Absolutely shockingly weird. We sit, we sit so close to someone else that often your legs touch. I sat beside a larger man on my flight from Ottawa to St. John’s Newfoundland. Not a short flight. We couldn’t even fit the middle arm rest down between us. So this person is in my bubble. Not only in my bubble but on top of it. I can feel the heat his leg is creating and I try to cross my legs, lean over to the window, sit sideways so that a stranger isn’t physically touching me. And the kicker- you don’t say ANYTHING.

You sit, in silence, for hours, knowing, feeling your bodies touching– and it’s NORMAL. Mind blowing to me people.

Oh flying- I’m so happy I do it so often so I can remember the wonderful majestic idea that we’re flying through the air.

With Love,

Chelsea