In Flight Irritations

Last weekend I took a trip on a renowned low cost airline, and the experience was fairly detestable.

For starters, they had done such an admirable job of turning the plane around quickly that my seat was still warm from whose-ever ass was on it before mine. I don't know why but this puts a vague sense of discomfort through my being, even when I KNOW the person who has left his bodily warmth on a seat for me.
Then I had the best travelling companions I could ask for.

• A restless dork ahead of me who would move his seat back up and down every few minutes, with a vengeance that could only have come from WANTING to take out my knees,
• A kid behind me who kicked MY seat back repeatedly because he was spoiled little brat and because his parents are probably ugly un-caring trolls
• A guy next to me that was big enough to be his own republic, and who had that smell that seems to accompany only the grotesquely large specimen of our kind. And of course he insisted on unburdening his experiences in Bangalore on my hapless self.

The only person who talked more than him was the pilot. He insisted on telling me how high up we were, what turbulence was coming and how, if I scrunched my nose up against the window (which I didn't have to put much effort to do, since my desire to get away from the ginormous idiot next to me had already put me in said position), I would be able to see some landmark that I didn't care about.
And this captain would come back on the speakerphone to bring me up to date on the fascinating fact that he had either turned on or off the seat belt sign.
He did have a deft touch though.. When we landed, he seemed to skim off the runway much like a stone skims over the surface of a lake, only - thankfully - we didn't all sink at the end of it. (Is that a terrible analogy, or what?).

Anyway, the most interesting part about my flight was how anxious everybody seemed to get off the plane. It seems like only a few nanoseconds had past after the first time the rear wheels touch the runway that half the plane sprang out of their seats and started shoving each other out of the way to get their bags out of the overhead compartments and got ready to walk out the door. How much sooner are these people going to get out? And most of them stand staring at the empty baggage conveyor for hours after their hurried exit out of the tube. I don't get it.

But the highlight of the trip was that the flight was on time, and the chunk of change I saved on the tickets allowed me to consume a copious amount of cold alcoholic beverages at my destination.

And that was almost reward enough for me to try low cost airlines again.