On Air Travel

People in airports crack me up. The eye rolls and exasperated sighs at long security lines. The I'm not going to wait in this! attitude. Come on guys. What do you expect? That by being negative and complaining the people waiting ahead of you will magically part and your sour face will just float on up to the front?

I realized while waiting in the pre-security line at LAX this morning (which quite impressively spanned the length of the entire Delta departures terminal) that airplanes are no different than any other type of public transportation. Except that we expect them to be such. Planes are merely buses that fly. Except that they require higher fares. There's nothing really glamorous about air travel (unless you do the private plane thing, but that's totally overrated considering how scary they are to actually fly in).

While I've certainly been that girl in tears having to gate-check my bag because I was late for a flight, and of course have complained, eye-rolled, etc while at the airport, I was quite calm and unaffected today. Patience and a smile go a long way. I was slightly dumbfounded when the lady at the check-in counter seemed shocked that I replied how are you after she'd asked me the same question. It's not like I made her day or am trying to congratulate myself, her reaction just reinforced the idea that she has to continually deal with people who are stressed, mean, angry, late, and tired. I tried to smile and be courteous to everyone around me after that encounter.

Until I couldn't. The whole airport experience was fabulous before I got onto the plane. Actually, the plane itself was fabulous, too. I had my own little TV (in coach!). Pretty good seat. The guy next to me wasn't huge and ebbing into my space like the last time I flew to Atlanta. In fact, today was probably the best flying experience I've had in a long time. But, then, the teenager across the aisle from me opened her Tupperware container of tuna.

The TSA makes rules mandating that certain items cannot be brought onto air-crafts. Tuna should be one of them. As I gagged in my seat, fully engulfed by the thick, sour, fishiness, I wondered if anyone had ever asphyxiated from breathing in tuna. I wondered if anyone spontaneously threw up all over their mini-TV because of tuna. I wondered if anyone ever stabbed another passenger with a plastic knife or smothered her with a SkyMall magazine because of disgusting-smelling, unbearable, demonic tuna.

I thought about the man earlier who scoffed at the security line, who inspired me to write this post. And I felt sorry for judging him. Because in that moment, surrounded by tuna, I was about two shallow breaths from complaining to a flight attendant. How dare she bring that ungodly food aboard. I demand you reassign my seat! I settled for putting the sleeve of my sweatshirt around my nose and mouth like a breathing tube until the girl finally put the top back on the Tupperware. But in the process I think I understood the mind of not just the cranky man from this morning, but of a serial killer.