Random Observations From An Airport
Posted by supercynic on May 10, 2008
I just recently returned from a business trip to Columbus, OH. In no particular order, I had these thoughts.
1. Isn’t it nuts that you used to be able to smoke on planes? Now that it’s been years since you’ve been able to smoke on planes, isn’t it nuts that they keep spending so much time telling us we can’t smoke on planes? Between the energy-consuming, ever-lighted non-smoking signs and the droning on of the safety announcement, I think we’ve got it now, “No smoking.” Oh, and don’t mess with the lavatory smoke detector. It’s against federal law. Apparently, Congress took a break from investigating the world-impacting practice of baseball players taking drugs to pass a law saying “Don’t break shit in the airplane bathroom.” Was this a problem to begin with?
2. What on God’s green earth does it matter whether my seat back is all the way up for take off and landing? I know every comedian in the world has done some version of this joke, but I’m serious. It makes no sense. And the flight attendants are getting even more fascist about it. On the last leg of my trip yesterday, the flight attendant insisted I put my seat up. I told her I’d be happy to, but since I didn’t put it back (lest I end up in the lap of the guy behind me now that there’s only 18″ between each row) it would be very hard for me to put it up. She kept insisting that it wasn’t it line with the other seats. Finally, the guy next to me said, “Ma’am, he didn’t put his seat back. It must be broken.” She left me alone after that.
3. I saw an old, old man wearing a toupee. No big deal except this toupee — and I kid you not — had a ponytail attached to it. I didn’t realize such a thing existed. I guess this is some form of human Daniel Boone coonskin cap.
UPDATED: I forgot one. Post 9/11, only ticketed passengers are allowed in the terminals of airports. For the ridiculously stupid, this means that unless you have a ticket and you are about to depart for somewhere, you cannot be in the terminal. Ok, fine. So, if the only people in the terminal are people who are about to leave to go to some other airport, why do we still need the big screens announcing the arriving flights? What the hell do I care if the 9:15pm flight from Buffalo is on time or not. It’s arriving at Gate A17? Good for them, but I don’t give a shit. When is my plane going to be here is what I would like to know. I need some heads up time so that I can disjoint my knees for proper placement in the seats.
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SBG NYC said
Super B ~
Not that I want to put my seat back forward ever, but I had it explained to me once that when airplanes take off and land, it is safest to have the seat backs all the forward in the event of a CRASH. This is b/c, I expect moreso for large and old people, that little distance backward of a seat in front of you could hinder your emergency exit from the plane.
I have always thought that if the person next to you has their seat back, you should make yours the same distance back, so both seats are not so easily identified as being in the ‘reclined’ position.
Happy Travels
supercynic said
I thought that after a crash most seat backs were either burned to a crisp and thus would flake away as you calmly exited the burning inferno or were thrown about 2 miles from the impact site landing on some incredibly unlucky old lady as she sat in her living room shouting out suggested retail prices on the Showcase Showdown on The Price Is Right.