Air Travel Experiences … Again

Lately, I just can’t get away from not-so-pleasant experiences when I fly somewhere. It happened again during my flights from Honolulu to Las Vegas this past weekend.

When you catch the red-eye that leaves Hawaii late at night, sometimes you just want to sleep. Every now and then you find it difficult to do; after all, it’s not easy falling asleep while sitting up and having to listen to the whiney drone of the jet engines and the rattle-tattle of loose stuff in the cabin.

So it’s extremely disconcerting when someone near you talks and talks and talks. It’s almost as aggravating as a crying child. Wait, I take that back. NOTHING comes close to being almost as aggravating as a crying child. Let’s just say it’s aggravating.

There was this guy behind me who felt compelled to explain to a young college student how the Trivia game worked on the Delta Airlines video console. You could tell she wasn’t very interested by the way she was responding – “Uh huh,” “I see,” “oh yes” … like that. But the guy went on and on for nearly half of the seven-hour flight.

Oh, and then there was the guy who sat next to me. As I was playing solitaire on the video console, he felt compelled to suggest moves for me. I finally just gave him “the look” and shut off the console. Jeez, that was aggravating.

We finally reached Salt Lake City and I changed planes, heading back westward to Los Angeles, so I could catch another plane and head northeastward to Las Vegas. That in itself is kind of aggravating, the way the fare structure had me zigzagging back and forth. It’s like a weekend golfer putting, overshooting and missing the hole, the overshooting and missing again, getting closer each time.

But I digress. What I wanted to tell you was that the guy same SAT BEHIND ME AGAIN! I mean, jeez Louise, can you believe it? And the thing is, he remembered me because he had seen the initials on my carry-on and said his was almost like mine – TMC instead of CTM. Oh, like I cared.

Mr. “Gotta Keep Talking” struck up a conversation with a woman sitting next to him and darned if she didn’t jump right into it. They talked for the entire trip. And to top it all off, he discovered that the first-class cabin flight attendant was a high school classmate of his who he hadn’t seen in 30 years.

He got one of the female flight attendants to call him over, and lordy lordy if the TWO of them didn’t carry on an animated conversation about classmates and the upcoming 30-year reunion this weekend.

About the only interesting thing I heard was that Sheryl Crow is their classmate (that would be Kennett High School in Kennett, Missouri, ‘cause they only mentioned it five times). But that ain’t enough to make listening to him for three hours from Hawaii to Salt Lake City, and two hours from Salt Lake to Los Angeles worth depriving me of some sleep.

And then … you just knew there was going to be an “and then,” didn’t you? And then … my Los Angeles to Las Vegas plane was a “cigar plane” a Canadair Regional jet CRJ900, which sits two on each side of a long yet narrow aisle. A whole bunch of people taller than five-feet bumped their heads … including me.

But that’s not the experience. You see, there was a trio of young women – African American – who were on their way to Vegas to celebrate one of their birthdays. The birthday girl was excited, of course, and was singing and talking to a Los Angeles young man who obviously didn’t get much sleep the night before and was headed to Las Vegas for a bachelor’s party. She kept blabbering and blabbering on to him – innocuous conversations, as you can imagine.

And like the college girl in the fourth paragraph, he kept muttering, “Uh huh,” “I see,” “oh yes” … like that.

And then (yep, another one), sleepy as I was, I drove for nearly two hours from the Las Vegas McCarran Airport to Laughlin. For someone who lives on an island and can get anywhere by car in less than an hour, that was a long drive. ‘Cause I was sleepy. ‘Cause of blabbermouths on my planes.

Next time, I think I’ll take the train and book a private cabin.