Pages

Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Travel Tip Tuesday



Complaint: "I hate sitting in the middle seat!' 
Who can't relate to this one? It's the reason we all leave gaps of seats between ourselves and other people at the movie theatre! We all love our personal space and when you get stuck in the middle seat you are robbed of all things personal (including a place for you to rest your tired arms). You look at the person sitting in the window seat and they are sound asleep with a place to lay their head. Then, you look to the person in the aisle seat and they have their leg stretched out into the aisle and their arms are resting so comfortably that you can almost hear them snore (I know arms don't snore, Im trying to illustrate how comfy that person is). Then you do a quick self evaluation and realize it feels as if you're giving yourself a big bear hug (bears don't hug either, see how that works). No place to lie your head, nowhere to stretch your legs, and surely nowhere to put your elbows. 

photo credit deborahfallows.com
Tip: This tip is not so much for the person in the middle seat (although I am your biggest cheerleader, use your elbows!) but rather the folks in the window and aisle seats. Let the person in the middle seat have an armrest BOTH armrests. To me, this seems fair. The person at the window gets the window + a place to lay their head. The person at the aisle gets a place to stretch their legs + they can get up whenever they want without feeling bad. Then YOU, the person in the middle, get 2 armrests. This makes everyone (in my idealistic mind) Happy, Happy, Happy (I'm a duck dynasty fan :D). Now see, we are on our way to happier travel already. 

Come on peeps, in the comment section leave me your complaints and your gripes. I know you all have them. Also, if you have any other tips regarding sitting in the middle seat share them with us in the comments section. 

Monday, January 21, 2013

Bring me your travel complaints, I'll give you my tips

Tomorrow I am going to be starting a series of blogs called Travel Tip Tuesday. I want to hear your questions, complaints, pet peeves, rants, anything. Hopefully from issues you have when you travel, on top of things that also annoy me, I can publish lots of ideas to make us all a little happier when we travel. In the comments section of this blog let me know what you hate most about traveling. Then check back every tuesday to get solutions to your problems as well as find out what bothers other people. I want people to be brutally honest here. Remember that the views and opinions posted here are mine and do not reflect the views of my employer.
photo credit smh.com.au

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

The call light is intended for emergencies

Ok peeps... You know in my first blog how I mentioned that sometimes the chaos takes place in the clouds?! Today was one of those days! Well, it continued on the ground too. Allow me to give you a glimpse into my day!

I checked in this morning to fly what I knew would be an exhausting day. I was flying from an unnamed pacific northwest (PNW) location to a city somewhere in the giant lone-star state and then turning around and heading right back to the unnamed pacific northwest city. I'm not naming cities because it keeps some mystery in our relationship, plus I would prefer to blog as a hobby rather than a full time job if you get my drift. Wink,Wink.

Anyway, back to my story. Please keep in mind this is not necessarily a normal day at work. OK. So, I along with my coworker, get onboard to meet the gal that we're flying with. She's a real peach but we're not getting the warm and fuzzies from her! This automatically makes the day interesting. Usually during boarding, as a flight attendant, you get a pretty good idea of what kind of crowd you have on board. i.e. party animals, families, business folks, low maintenance, high maintenance etc. etc. When people start asking for cocktails on the ground you can usually bet you're in for a doozy! Thats how the day began. We were in for a doozy day... or shall I say boozy day?! (Ok that was dumb but humor me its been a long day)

Midway through the flight, a passenger rings his flight attendant call button (I feel it is my duty to remind you that is for emergencies) to tell me that the passenger sitting next to him has different movies on her inflight entertainment system than he does and he wants to watch her movies! I know what you're thinking... "how old is this little boy?" Actually it was a grown MAN! I creatively fix the problem and continue with what I was doing. THEN fast forward a little while, after a very labor intensive couple of beverage services, the nice man that inquired about the cocktails on the ground pays us a visit. He is so happy with the service he has received that he wants to know if we can except tips. I inform him (with extreme hesitation) that, "No, we're not supposed to do that." The rest of the flight goes by and we land in the lone-star state. Mr. Cocktail, who was on vacation, going deer and pig "hunt'n" makes his way to that back and thanks us for the fantastic, FUN, flight and handed me and the other flight attendant each a $20 bill that we may or may not have excepted. GREAT LEG! Hypothetically, if we were to allow this man to buy us our next few meals rather than except a tip, we would be very thankful!!

Now, on the way back to the PNW we have some real fun! There was a very nice military guy (thanks for your service!) who after a few drinks with the gal next to him, had what I believe to be an alcohol induced love connection. I think she was a little more interested in him than he was her. None the less it was very fun to watch. THEN we were pulling the beverage cart up the aisle for our second service and I saw something that stopped me in by tracks... A woman was trying to eat a man's face!!!! Okay, not really but it sure as heck looked like it! These were 2 people that caught my attention during boarding and continued to hold my attention through ought the flight by excessively ringing their flight attendant call light (again intended for emergencies) now they were making out to the point where I felt a little uncomfortable. Please note, making me feel uncomfortable in the slightest is hard to do! I looked around to see how far spread their audience was and learned that it was at least about 15 people and my reaction probably attracted a couple more eyes. It was just gross! After providing extensive entertainment, they finally settled down and fell asleep.

Now lets talk about the ground action. We land safely (beautiful landing by the way) back in the PNW, and I hear a little girl crying. It wasn't until we were parked at the gate that we realize she was clearly not feeling well and the evidence had been projected all over the floor and seats around her. This was especially unfortunate for my coworker (the one I liked working with) because her bag, and a $250 pair of shoes (the price of comfort) were stowed under the last row of seats. That evidence was not only all over the floor and seats, but also inside the shoes and all over the bag belonging to my coworker! UGH!!! Deplaning usually feels long, but when you are stuck in the back of the aircraft, with the smell of vomit filling the air, it feels a little bit longer!

photo credit uselog.com


*This story has been modified from its original version. It has been modified to fit your screen.
In other words I shortened this story significantly so you didn't get bored