Jabber Jabber Doo
Dateline Honolulu: Nov. 22,
2016
If I
thought being in the Economy Cabin with a lot of children on my flight from
Honolulu to Oakland was annoying, my flight back home rivaled that in a
different way.
A
50-something "I love to talk continuously" fellow sat in front of me
in the First-Class cabin. He was in seat 1-H. (Bulkhead) and I was in 2-H,
right behind him.
The
acoustics of the seating, ceiling, overhead storage compartment and the timbre
of his voice ensured that every word he said was over-amplified and clear as a
bell. It started as the plane backed out of the gate.
It
wasn't until two hours later, after completion of the brunch, that he reclined
his seat and shut his eyes—for about five minutes, before the woman next to him
asked him a question. It was very apparent that they knew each other; maybe
they were going to Honolulu on company business. Anyway, that reignited his
talking engines.
He
talked about:
- Business
strategy, how to prepare for meetings, and other perhaps-confidential
information that I could have recorded if I were in corporate espionage.
- Advice
to his seat mate after she gets to hotel and checks in: "Go across the
street and get your Ricola at ABC, it's the best."
- His
arthroscopic gall bladder surgery—three small incisions and all that. His
declaration: "My first organ to lose. Less I have to take with me when I
die."
- His
mom's strange habits at the dinner table and how it annoyed the family
- Being
a self-declared social butterfly who likes the trite "meeting people"
habit.
- Not
liking being wrong when he was younger.
- And
on and on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, yadda yadda yadda.
I
have no music, videos or movies downloaded on my iPad to watch and block out
his voice. I usually stream them. I don't like to listen to the airline's music
or watch their videos or movies either. Plus I can't find my noise-canceling
earphones (where did the wife hide them anyway?) so I tried using the
airline's padded earphones. Unfortunately, all that did was cancel out the
ambient jet noise, making his voice much clearer.
Sometimes, Jabber-Jabber-Doo wins out.
Jabber
Jabber Too!
Dateline Honolulu: Wednesday,
Feb. 1, 2017
Do I
have the words "Keep on talking, I love it" on my forehead? An
irritating jabber-on experience happened again, while I was at the gate waiting
for my flight from Honolulu to Las Vegas.
A
dozen seats to my left sat a guy in I'd say his late 30s, who talked nonstop
from the moment I sat myself down at 9:15 a.m. until a little after 11.
The
targets of his discourse were two elderly guys (one in a wheelchair) across the
aisle, who were listening semi-intently, dozing off at times, nodding
disinterestedly every now and then, and basically trapped.
He
went on and on, smoothly transitioning from one unrelated topic to another. And
his voice was hard to ignore—slightly hoarse, slightly voluminous, and blah
blah blah.
I
think the guy and his audience were friends. Thank goodness, he went to
the toilet around 11 a.m., and when he returned, sat next to his friends so he
could speak in a softer voice.
That's
two flights in a row for me. Aren't I the lucky one?
It
was either my 2017 Hyundai Accent rental car ... or my mind.
