Tory Shepherd: 10 worst in-flight behaviours
Everyone has a flying horror story, but some up in the air gripes are far more common than others. From aisle seat disputes to the lofty ambitions of overhead luggage, these are the peeves that drive Tory Shepherd mad.
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Esteemed Advertiser colleague Michael McGuire had an epic Scots-style grumble last week about rude bastards on the road.
He was moaning about motorists who can’t be bothered to flick the indicator on to let others know where they’re going, writing: “It’s an observation based solely on the number of times I have found myself shouting in the car in an unseemly fashion in the past month or so at someone in front of me: ‘Come on, which way are you going, you f---wit?’”
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We all know it. The rising blood pressure, the incomprehension that people can remain blissfully — or arrogantly — ignorant of the effect their actions are having on others.
What’s heartily horrible about this lack of awareness is the cumulative impact. I was inspired to follow in Grumpy McGrumpface’s shoes after a plane trip I took this week.
Here are just some of the ways in which people make others unhappy:
1. Faffing around at the self check-in while others are queuing. Oh, you thought you should recheck your packing, or change shoes, or grab a jacket?
While you’re hogging the machine, the guy behind you had to make a decision about what to sacrifice because of the lost 10 minutes: taking the kids to the loo, getting a second coffee, recharging his phone.
2. Lining up in the premium boarding lane even when the regular plebs’ line is shorter. Actually, this is helpful; your idiocy is letting other people get through faster.
3. Using all the overhead space so that someone’s small backpack can’t fit. This one is the airline’s fault.
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4. Sitting in the wrong seat. Deliberately. This has now happened to me multiple times — a lanky fella has nabbed my aisle seat and tells me that he should have it because he’s taller.
Mate, I won the right to choose the aisle seat through spending thousands of hours on flights, breathing farts and eating bland crap. Also, your legs are not longer than mine.
5. Once everyone has headphones on they can forget that their wibbly, wobbly body can make all sorts of noises for various emissions. They can’t hear themselves, so they think no one else can. Incorrect. Some of us tend to imagine those big metal tubes as slowly filling up with your stinky molecules.
6. Taking the window seat but getting up and down and up and down and up and down. Unless you have a bladder infection, there’s no excuse.
7. Playing elbow wars.
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8. Hitting anyone with anything. That includes you, hostie, who knocked my kneecap off its tracks; and you, overpacker, who many times has hit me on the noggin with the overhead bag you’re not strong enough to get down smoothly; and you, oblivious person with the backpack who swiped my nose.
9. Not being prepared to get off the bloody plane. It’s a pet peeve how quickly passengers want to get off the plane. I was once trapped in the window seat by an aisle-and-middle couple who smiled Zenly while the entire plane emptied. I had to go without lunch just to get my connection.
10. Last but certainly not least, is the most impervious piece of plane travel-related bad behaviour. Creating a mosh pit at the bag carousel. Squidging yourself so close to it that no one else can see, let alone retrieve, their luggage. Why, for the love of Earth, why? No one gains. Everyone would be better off maintaining a distance of at least a couple of metres. This carousel-hoggery is the apotheosis of selfishness, an analogy for our times.
None of these little screw-yous are all that momentous. But the accretion of little screw-yous during a day, a week and a lifetime are a toxic burden. Imagine if it was the other way around.
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McGuire gave the nod to the finger nod, the little uptick you feel when someone gives you a wave for letting them through. As opposed to the little downtick you feel when they don’t.
These add up. In our rich world, we’re suffering an epidemic of loneliness, of isolation. Anxiety and depression are more common than ever.
I’m not saying that human’s habitual rudeness is the root cause of these, but if everyone took the opportunity to smile, connect, and do the polite thing instead of blindly barging about their own business, maybe it would help.
Originally published as Tory Shepherd: 10 worst in-flight behaviours