Here is what I wrote on my flight on Thursday:
I have been absent from this blog for quite some time – I apologize. Life has been busy, and amazingly I have not really had any crazy scenarios to truly bitch about – which are what typically spurns my posts. Well that is until the flight that I’m on as I type this up. Of course by the time I post this, I will no longer be on that flight as I’m on a plane without internet access – but that’s beside the point. J
As some of you may know I’m a frequent flyer. I’m not high up there in frequent flyer status, but I hit between 25,000 and 35,000 miles every year mostly on US Airways, thereby obtaining silver status with US Airways. Being a frequent traveler, I know a decent amount about traveling and have encountered many folks and many different situations. Typically I just roll my eyes and laugh at them or something. Well – that’s except for my redeye that Delta placed a man in the middle seat that needed two – but I digress.
On today’s flight, I was sitting in one row and two seats over from a woman in her mid-50’s (I’d guess). This woman was listening to her music from the moment she was in her seat, which is totally fine with me. What bugged me was that I could hear her music as clear as if I was the one with the ear buds in my ears. Mind you, that’s also keeping in mind that the plane’s engines are roaring, and I could hear it that clearly OVER THE SOUNDS OF THE ENGINES!!!
I kept my mouth quiet about this, but it was interrupting my attempt to read and my sleep, and I knew I wasn’t the only one getting annoyed by this lady’s rudeness as there were at least 3 different people who kept looking back/over at her. So after about an hour plus of listening to this I finally hit my point (mind you this is a five-plus hour flight) and politely tapped her on her shoulder to get her attention and politely asked if she could turn down the music. She immediately questioned whether I could really hear the music and I politely responded that we all could hear the music and got nods from those other folks around me. I thought we were good.
But then 10 seconds later when she starts to realize what just happened, she got up from her seat and turned around and stated that she was on 5 flights today and no one else had said anything.
At that point I thought about taking out my laptop and starting this post, yet I didn’t (yup …it gets better). Here were some of my initial thoughts at that point:- 5 flights in one day? Seriously? There is no place to go between that would require you to take 5 flights in one day. I can’t even come up with a scenario where that would happen. Say you were coming from some small island over by Australia or something:o You take a small flight from small island/city to closest major cityo You take a flight from major city to next major city at the halfway point – that would be San Fran where this flight started)o Now you are on flight 3, not flight 6.o MAYBE, I can see how you added another stop in there, except I can’t think where that plane would have stopped at.- Once I finally got past the ridiculous 5 flights comment, I couldn’t get over the arrogance of this lady. I’ve been on many flights, and very rarely can I hear someone else’s music. Typically when I do, they turn it down because it’s too loud for their ears, other times it just lasts one song. I’ve never heard anyone listen to something so loud that would require someone to say something.- When I do hear really loud music, it is usually coming from a teen or twenty-something, not an adult in their mid-50’s. Don’t you know that you can blow out your ear drums just by listening to music at a moderate level – which was the level that I could hear it at when it was 5 feet away from my ears?
I eventually just let my mind subside and went back to reading (because as tired as I was before, this little situation woke me up). Then she got up to go to the bathroom, and as she walked by me she snidely said “I hope you never have kids”.
I thought about responding with a lie and just saying that I do have kids, but I raised them well and they are more polite than she will ever be. But I held my tongue and just took my laptop out so I could get my frustrations out in this post.
You have a personal music player with your own ear buds. That means that the music is for your ears and not for everyone around you – therefore you should play it at a reasonable volume. And if someone says they can hear it and politely ask you to turn it down – and others agree – that doesn’t mean you should question that person. It means you should politely say “I’m sorry; I didn’t realize I had it that loud”. It surely doesn’t mean that you should doubt that person’s ability to raise children and be a good parent just because they don’t want to hear your crap music on a long evening flight that should be void of most noises outside the occasional screaming child and sound of the engines. Even though I don’t like to hear the former on my flights, I expect to hear those noises.
Oh – and she kept her music down for about an hour, but I can hear it again, this time not as obnoxiously, so I’ll keep my mouth shut until she brings it back to full volume. And if that happens, I won’t be so polite – and I’ll tell her if she is going to be stupid enough to fly 5 flights in one day, than she should just invest in the noise canceling earphones, because the sound barrier goes both ways on those.
Since I typed this on the flight, the lady did end up blasting her music for the last 45 minutes to an hour, all the way through when the wheels touched down. Which means again, she ignored the announcement that all electronics should be turned off during the decent and the flight attendants let her get away with it. I was quite annoyed, especially since there was no way they couldn't hear the music when they walked by, especially since more and more people were giving the lady dirty looks. But I decided I just wanted to get home in a peaceful mood so I could easily fall asleep, so I ended up keeping my mouth shut. Then when everyone was departing she was yelling across the plan like 5 rows back to her husband/partner/travel partner/whatever he was. She was seriously the most obnoxious person I have ever been on a plane with - and I have been on a plane with some doozies!
Feel free to comment on this story or share your own crazy flight stories in the comments section of the post.
