Sun, 06 Jan 2008
So after putting on my belt and tying my shoes, I made my way up to the gate to look for my aunt to say hello and good bye before flying back to SF.
I asked a gate agent and he said he hadn't seen her. But it's kind of funny, the gate agents seem to cover for each other, so I'm sure when I asked for my aunt by name he wouldn't help. But I said- I'm her nephew, I just wanted to say goodbye, but I think she was working the 5am shift and I must have missed her. Then he lightened up and said- oh, yeah, I saw her earlier, but she might have left already. I had a similar conversation at the ticketing counter, but that's no big deal.
I just think it's kind of funny. It's like if someone calls tech support and asks to speak to the agent they just spoke to- the CSRs will say "oh, I'm not sure if they're still here, what's your incident number?" (well, that's what they're supposed to do).
But at that moment my aunt walked up and we sat down and started talking. After a minute or two this guy walks by near us with his and his wife's bags. He plops the bags (including her fancy purse and his laptop bag) down on three lounge seats and wanders off to go pee and go to Starbucks (and he's gone for a while).
I point out the bags to my aunt and say, "wow, what a goofball, not only did he leave a decent laptop all alone, but his wife's purse too, and that's
an expensive bag*. If you weren't here, I'd steal it." (I said this in jest of course)
*yes, I'm too metro
She said- "uggh, why'd you point that out, now I have to do something because either the cops will pick it up when they come by or the cleaning staff will" (she was already off duty). So she decides to move the laptop and purse near us, and gets her id necklace out.
At least 20 more minutes pass before either the guy or his wife come back, and by now I really were wishing I had checked to see how new the laptop was.
Finally the wife comes up and she's looking around and starts getting a bit worried, and sees my aunt waving her over (we're like 5 feet from her). She walks up, my aunt hands her the bags and says something nice about, hey, I work for X airline and I moved the bags near us because the cops were about to pick them up, they were walking over yadda yadda, your husband shouldn't wander off and leave bags around yadda yadda cleaning staff yadda yadda security yadda yadda.
The woman says, "oh, ok, thanks." She wanders back to her other stuff, plops the bags down. Sees her husband walking up with their lame ass
coffeemilk drinks, points at the bags, then wanders up to him, they talk, and he nods. The woman then went and wandered off again. The husband looks like he was about to wander off again, but sees me staring at him, and then goes to sit down. Tards.
I looked at my aunt and we just rolled our eyes.
No, that's not the crazy lady either.
Not that any of you do this- but you know how when it's time to board the plane and they call by group and people wander up? (I'll skip the rant about people not knowing how to tell what group they're in).
Okay, so you know how there's always one person who has a bag on one shoulder, a cup of coffee in the other hand, their boarding pass is sticking out of a book or something and they can't use their hands to just give the agent the pass, they just stick the book or magazine out and wait for the agent to take their "bookmark"?
You know what's really annoying? When they do that, but the boarding pass is in their mouth, or teeth. Dude, don't do that. It's gross and it really pisses off the gate agents. They go through gallons of
Purell already without your nastiness. It's also cold season. It's also gross, but I already wrote that.
So I finally get on the plane, and I sit down in my seat next to a woman who's chatting furiously on her cell phone.
We were in first class and this woman had already made her seat look more like a nest with her crap. I'm glad they offered up some sparkling wine for the flight!
Before I go into this, I need to tell you what I've told my female coworkers: "Don't leave your work id/badge on your belt when you go out to lunch or get on my express bus."
Some perv could see it, memorize your name, and come up and say "Name! Hey how are you?" And you'll look confused, have a vague recollection of seeing this person before, and say hi back. Then they'll say "Oh, we met a long time ago at that Deloitte/KPMG/IBM/Whatever your badge shows company party." And then your guard is down. And if he has game, the next thing you know he's asking you out for coffee, but then f's it up and gets stuck in the "friend zone". I mean, hypothetically of course.
The same thing goes for your boarding pass. Don't stick it up in the tray just sitting their with your name sticking out. Put it away and rip it up later. And again with your magazines, rip off the subscriber section of the cover.
Anyway, the woman on the phone who is speaking animatedly seems slightly upset. But she was talking kind of loudly because I think she wanted both me and the
stewardessflight attendant to hear part of her story for sympathy. She would even look up from time to time to make sure we could hear her. It was annoying because I wanted to check out the female passengers who were boarding and this woman was distracting me.
Here's more or less how it went:
Yeah, but he didn't have to call me that. No, he called me an idiot*! What does he know? Those TSA people are just government workers.
*I actually think he said something much worse, but I can't remember- he may have used the B word.
Well, I know but. . . yes. . .yes
No, I said I wanted a pat-down instead. I didn't want to take off my shoes (she was wearing boots by the way, no laces).
Yes, I know but. . . no . . yes
No, he said it was crowded or something and it'd be easier if I just took off my shoes and belt and put them in the machine. He said I'd be slowing down the line by removing an agent from that section of security area or something.
Yes, I know but. . . no, I didn't want to take off my shoes and I know I can just walk up and ask for a pat down instead!
Well yes it was a bit crowded today, but it's his job.
No, I know that- but this man behind me even said "lady, just take off your shoes and go through the line, you've already slowed us down!" I mean, realllllly. . . like I made him late to the airport- they should've just shown up earlier!
No, I know that. . . but if they insist on doing that, they can do a pat-down instead. And that's when that nasty man called me a name, and then the TSA agent said I was an idiot for slowing things down!
I realized at this time, that it was this woman who caused a bunch of people in line to make a slight commotion as well as a crapload of groaning noises and eye rolling
in part one of the story so she must have said something to annoy the people in line behind her.
I looked at the
stewardessflight attendant who had heard all of this and she had a look on her face that almost betrayed her big smile, but we were both kind of shocked.
As the plane loaded and got ready, she got two
warningspolite requests to turn off her cell phone. She finally did, but it took her forever to do so.
Afterwards, each time the
stewardessflight attendant would ask her something, nest-er would try to bond with her. She would ask for two or three things at once and then follow up with a "bonding question".
"Can you hang up my coat, could I also have an extra blanket? Did you use to work the route to Arizona? I used to fly there a lot."
"Can I have a glass of champagne, a glass of water on the side with no ice ooohh where did you get that ring?" Yuck.
Before we were even at cruising altitude, Chatty Cathy decided that she had to pee and that meant leaving her nest. Unfortunately for me, that meant she knocked over 3/4ths of a large Starbucks iced-tea in my lap. (No apology)
What was dumb of her is that she knew someone was already in the restroom. So instead of just waiting, she dumped her tea on me and just waited by the door. The
stewardessflight attendant asked her to sit back down until it was vacant because we had mild turbulence and the sit-the-fuck-down light was on.
Nope, she wouldn't do it until they asked her a third time, and it was the steward who asked her then. I was on the aisle seat, so I had to keep getting up for her once he walked off because she got right back up.
The worst bonding attempt was when we got our food and she asked the
stewardessflight attendant where her charm bracelet was.
She reached in her bag and pulled out some lame ass silver charm bracelet with a few dingleberry charms dangling off of it and says, "Oohhh you just have to have one of these if you work for the airline!"
What the unobservant bitch didn't realize was that the flight attendant was wearing TWO
Italian charm bracelets on her wrist.
These bracelets are the flat kind with charms as the links, probably so the dingleberrys won't drag into the food or drinks.
Some of the various links were
designs from cities around the world or airports on one bracelet and I think personal stuff, probably from her family or friends, on the other bracelet.
The flight attendant had been really nice but now has had enough with our row and now is trying to not talk more than she has to. But she looks at the unobservant bitch's charms (which are in my face now because she's leaning over) and deadpans, "ooh that's nice, but those dangling charmns would get in the way," and walks off.
After another hour of this woman needing various things whenever someone would walk by she tries to talk to me but I was refusing to make eye contact. I also had my headphones on and was
watching a movie on my iphone. But that didn't stop her from leaning over and trying to watch and asking me what movie it was.
I was polite, but I turned the screen away so she couldn't see it, not that she could see before- I was turned away and sitting awkwardly to
not sit in her pool of iced-tea in my seat.
About 30 minutes outside of LAX she decides to
whip out her cell phone. She powers it up and checks her voicemail on speakerphone. At first I thought she was just listening to music, but then I realized what she was doing. I sooo wanted the bigger steward to walk by and yell at her, but he missed it.
About this time, I turn and say, you're not supposed to use your phone on the plane*. She pretended not to hear me because she was listening to voicemail. Then she started texting her friends. I didn't want to get into it with her.
*look, I'm well aware of tech studies that disagree with the FAA about phones and planes and that in other countries on some airlines you can use your mobile in the galley area, but this is the
AlbertoGonzales-lovin USA! 9/11!
They told everyone to turn off electronics as we were landing, but that didn't stop her from texting more and calling her friends (who thankfully weren't picking up).
As we were coming in for a landing, before the front wheels were even down, she clicks off her seat belt and starts rustling up her nest, which at this point looks like a raccoon got into Angie's recycling bin after a long vacation-- US Weekly and People everywhere.
The only thing I could think in my head was-- of all the times when planes taxi to a gate and hit a bump too hard and people fall over. . . . PLEASE make it this time, I want to see her hit the floor. But alas, it didn't happen.
She's lucky I was more involved in watching
Eva Green (hot!) and didn't take her picture during the flight, or one of her US Weeklys to be really vindictive. I mean c'mon, I'm famous on the internet!
That's the end of the story.
So let's raise our glasses to the unobservant around us who slow our days down, answer calls during movies, leave their ringers on in the movies, schedule Friday afternoon meetings, refuse to take their shoes off on the busiest travel season of the year in a slower airport, drive their slow minivans in the carpool lane on the weekends, drive with their brights on, don't signal, don't turn on their headlights in their silver/gray cars when it's raining.
Here's to RuthAnne M_______, who splits her time between the greater San Antonio area and Southern California. I raise my glass to your dumb, unobservant bitch ass. Salud!
06 Jan 15:36 | /travel | 3 comment(s)
you should have told her that she was the most inconsiderate vile person you'd ever met. you don't know her and you're smart enough for her not to know a thing about you. these kinds of people need a wake-up call. and oooo maybe she woulda say "well i never!" and your response coulda been "well maybe you should." ooo SNAP! dang, imaginary conversations rule, don't they?
01/06/2008 18:21:07
you're SUCH a tease!
How long until we hear the story about how you cyber-stalked her through the information she broadcast? How long till you crashed her network? Added her email address to every spam list? Left "accidental" rendezvous messeges to her on her home/husband/BF machine? C'mon at least post the work profile from her job!
01/07/2008 13:20:34
You can get a different camera app for your iphone that takes silent pics. Perfect for covert missions targeting bitch asses for public humiliation.
01/07/2008 15:21:23
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