I was recently returning to Jacksonville, Florida from Kansas City, Missouri after an extended weekend where I was a co-hostess for my sister’s baby shower. Needless to say, I was exhausted.
The first leg of my flight was from KC to Ft. Lauderdale. Flying Southwest and lucky enough to have an A boarding pass, I chose the very back row. As the plane continued to fill, the aisle seat on my row was taken by a young lady leaving the middle seat open. Finally the last 2 people got on board. They appeared to be traveling together, and the gentleman took the available seat in my row. His companion, a woman, found an empty seat in the row in front of me. During takeoff, the gentleman asked the other girl in our row to switch with his companion once we reached cruising altitude so they could work. She, of course, agreed.
The lady moves back to my row, on the aisle seat, and proceeds to be so loud I cannot rest. I cannot even hear what he is saying to her, but I can hear EVERY WORD this lady is saying. I tried to tune her out. That didn’t work. I pulled out my phone (in airport mode, of course) and started watching a movie with my headphones in and could STILL hear her. It was awful. I was so looking forward to several solid hours of sleep.
Tagged as:
chatty,
southwest airlines
On New Year’s Eve I flew from Miami to Atlanta. My frequent flier program automatically upgrades me to first class when seats are available which was the case for this trip. When the gate attendant announced that boarding would soon begin, people began crowding around the walkway entrance as they usually do. About 10 minutes later she called for Zone 1 (my zone) to begin boarding. I looked around the gateway and saw that no one was moving. There was one woman yakking on her phone and another group of chit-chatters, none of whom were moving toward the gate. I therefore assumed their zone had not been called and preceded to the entry. I politely said excuse me because phone yakker and the chit-chatter were blocking my way (though making no attempt at actually moving toward the ticket collector). The collector scanned my ticket and I was on my merry way… or so I thought. I was about half way down the ramp when I heard a woman’s voice yelling, “Oh hell no! Oh hell no you did not just cut in front of me!” I turned around to see what the commotion was about. It was phone yakker. So I replied, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were ready to board. My mistake.”
Unfortunately a polite apology was not enough to quell her anger over what was apparently a much more egregious offense that I ever could have imagined. She continued to yell. Expletive this. Expletive that. Finally I asked her if she had lost her mind, to which she replied “No, you’ve lost your mind!” I reminded her that I was not the person yelling and chasing someone down a gate ramp. As luck would have it, I then accidentally sat in her seat… which was right next to my assigned seat! This really set her off. To be honest, by this point, I was no longer listening to what she had to say. It was nothing more than a blur of curse words. Fortunately, because we were now on the flight, the flight attendant took notice. She let the psychopath know that the pilot had been walking in front of us as we boarded, and had heard everything. He had told the flight attendant to call security and have psychopath removed from the flight if necessary. Oh, and did I mention that psychopath was still on her phone during all of this?
The attendant then helped me to find another first class seat. Well, for almost the entire duration of the flight I could hear psycho phone yakker telling another passenger about the incident. Though the other passenger did tell her she needed to calm down, she also told her that phone yakker had reacted correctly – that I had made other passengers uncomfortable. Unbelievable. I made a simple mistake. I did my best to apologize for it. What else could I have done? Since when is behaving like a raging lunatic the correct reaction? If such a small mistake could set this woman off like this, I can’t imagine what day to day life must be for her – nonstop crisis mode? Apparently I thought I was flying the friendly skies but instead took off for the loony bin.
Tagged as:
chatty,
flight attendant,
pilot
It was June 2003 and I had just moved to Georgia because I had been stationed there with the Navy. I was taking a flight from Columbia, SC to Boca Raton, FL to meet my at-the-time boyfriend’s grandparents. Thankfully it was a short flight.
I had been dealing with a freaky (for me) head cold that came out of nowhere. It may have been my body rejecting the humidity and stench of the Southeast, but at any rate, I had some stuffed-up sinuses.
So, we board the plane, get all situated, and wait. Apparently a lovely southern summer thunderstorm had developed (which, in the south especially, could appear out of nowhere) within the vicinity of the airport. We were forced to wait on the plane for it to pass. I was in the aisle seat and I shared the row with an older woman of about 65 years of age who was in the window seat. We started politely chatting about our travel plans, these freak thunderstorms, etc. I had no idea what was to come.
We finally start taxiing down the runway. It was then that I discovered that this woman was evidently a very nervous flier. The thunderstorm apparently did not help the situation. So, here we are, getting reading for take-off and she starts nervously talking to me about how she “hopes the pilot knows how to fly through clouds” and her “daughter would just be crushed if this plane crashed because she just had a baby,” and other flight-appropriate topics.
As we started approaching our cruising altitude, my head cold reminded me that it was still there. The higher and higher we climbed the more excruciating the pain was. I had never flown with a head cold before so I had no idea that the change in pressure could cause such pain. So, here I am, in horrible pain. I have my fingers and hands in all sorts of contorted positions on my face trying to put pressure on it in a vain attempt to relieve the pain. I looked like I could have been playing some macabre version of peek-a-boo with a child.
As it went, however, the woman did not take the hint. I had mentioned several times that my head cold was causing me much discomfort but she never stopped talking. She nervously chatted about anything and everything. Within the same breath, she’d cover about six different topics, never letting me get in a word. At first I tried to be polite by responding with appropriately-placed “uh-huhs,” still covering my face with my contorted hands. I thought that once we leveled out the pain would subside. It never did.
After about 30 minutes of feeling like somebody was trying to slice themselves out of my head through my face, I had had enough. I interrupted her riveting “conversation” of, I don’t know, canned foods, looked at the woman and said: “ma’am, I don’t mean to be rude but I simply can’t continue to talk to you. I am in a lot of pain right now and I can’t carry on a conversation.” She gave me this look as though she had just caught me punching a baby. Thankfully for me, it worked. This woman had to figure out how to cope with her nerves, or whatever other social disorder she had, on her own.
I never did understand how she could have wanted to have a “conversation” with a person who was covering their face with their hands. Maybe she just thought I was a crazy person and wanted to keep talking to me to ensure that I was not going to create a hostage situation on the plane?
Tagged as:
chatty,
military,
senior citizen
I was on the way back from my brother’s wedding in Pittsburgh to Paris via New York. Sitting next to me was an over excited girl in her 20’s who started chatting the minute she sat down about how this was her first time flying to Europe, she was so excited, I had to hear all about her boyfriend and friends… etc.
At some point (not sure when) I fell asleep (I was exhausted having only flown in a few days earlier plus all the wedding celebrations). I awoke when the plane landed and when I turned to this girl to wish her luck on her trip and all, she had the nerve to tell me off for falling asleep! She actually told me that she thought that I was very rude because she was in the middle of talking to me! I am not rude by nature so I felt bad, but honestly!
Tagged as:
chatty
