Today I flew to Boston. The flight itself was mostly uneventful, except that because of rain I was late getting into Dallas, which made me think I would miss my connector, but then it was delayed too so it was okay. Mostly, today was just an interesting study in the personality differences of travelers.
On my first flight I sat next to a very nice lady from New York. We chitchatted a little bit about our short layover times and lamented the fact that we probably wouldn’t make our flights. Behind us were two adorable little girls in matching outfits that were extremely well behaved. They were so well behaved, in fact, that I forgot they were behind us until we landed and I stood up.
On my next leg, from DFW to BOS, the seatmate experience was a little different. I had an aisle seat, and had my jacket in the middle seat while I got my phone and Kindle out of my purse. A man stopped next to me and said, “I’m in there,” gesturing to the two seats next to me. I started to stand up, and said, “Are you in the middle?” so I could know if I needed to pick up my jacket right then or not. He looked at me and said, “Uh, yeah. It’s a full flight.” Okaaaaaay. Thanks for the news update, Rude Man.
My question is–why do people say things to deliberately make other people feel like idiots? Now I’m not saying that you have to be super gushy nice all the time, or talk to everyone you sit by. In fact more often than not I don’t actually visit much with the person next to me. But even if I am feeling “peckish,” if you will, I keep the mean things in my head. It doesn’t do anything for the universe to say them out loud and make a perfect stranger feel stupid.
Okay stepping off soapbox now. Thanks for listening!
I’m with you sister. Rude comments by mean people suck no matter what but on top of the already large list of hassles we experience as frequent travelers, they can ruin an otherwise perfectly good moment. A few flights ago I was lucky enough to receive my upgrade to first. I politely told the man in 4C that I was in 4D. He proceeded to go about his business of arranging his briefcase, never even indicating he had heard me and never making a move to let me by. So, a few seconds later I repeated myself, where upon he snapped at me that he heard me the first time. Seriously? Hhmmm…should my lovely complimentary glass of Cabernet accidentally end up in your lap in the next hour? Of course it didn’t…but it would have been karmic justice.