I – Thou shalt not place your arm over the center arm rest and into your neighbor’s side – it’s just not right
II – Thou shalt brush your teeth and, in hot weather, consider wearing deoderant
III – Thou shalt not read your newspaper in a completely open position, especially from the middle seat
IV – Thou shalt understand that closed eyes indicates your neighbor has a desire to sleep, even if this means he might miss out on a thimble-sized amount of ginger ale or a package of cardboard pretzels. Repeat – thou shalt not wake him for the stale pretzels.
V – Airlines shalt not charge extra for use of the bathroom. Or for one lonely checked bag. Or for the seat.
VI – Flight attendants, while smiling and greeting every single person that enters the plane and acting all flight-attendanty, shall not also be texting. This takes the fakeness to a dangerous level.
VII – Thou shalt not build any more airports as spread out as Atlanta or as chaotic as Chicago or as mean as Philly (I know the Stanley Cup loss was only hours removed, but there’s no point in shouting at someone just because they didn’t see your golf cart full of elderly people coming)
VIII – Pilots shalt not stand at their little door and grace everyone with a cheesy smile if, during their most recent landing, they slammed the plane into the runway so hard everyone’s teeth fell out
Sarcasm aside, a huge thanks to three folks who made the plane ride interesting: Anna for sharing the story of her Vietnamese family’s journey to the US and how she grew up in a trailer with her two parents and 10 brothers and sisters; thanks to the very nice lady from Chicago for her encouragement in pursuing a career in writing; thanks to the traveling-harvester lady from Wichita (I’m so sorry I forget your name already) for educating me about a profession I had never heard of and also for the long emergent/traditional church discussion. Each of you obviously read the eight commandments before I did – I didn’t exactly have commandment II covered yesterday.
And now, sarcasm back in the forefront, a huge thanks…HUGE thanks…to the rather large gentleman who insisted on falling asleep with his arm on my side of the armrest, forcing me to curl up in the fetal position, plastered against the wall of the plain, at 6am on Wednesday morning.
There’s an extra tablet – what commandments did I miss?
Commandment #9 Men with long legs shall not flail their legs about in to the next passenger’s leg room space. I know you are uncomfortable-so am I! But keep your legs in a fully un-relaxed position and out of my personal leg space. When I doze off, I don’t want to feel your leg next to mine because of your egregious encroachment!
Here is my question-just ran in to this on Tuesday:
When you are seated in the dreaded middle seat-which arm rest do you get to use? One or both and if one, which one? I found myself entirely confused by the etiquette in this situation. I finally asked the two men sitting on either side of me, but they only chuckled a bit nervously and shrugged their shoulders.
i think if you have the middle seat you should be given both armrests. it’s only fair.
Nice. I will invoke this next time I get the middle. Shawn said!
Commandment X-Thou shalt not talk to anyone other than the people sitting next to you while on the plane. No one else cares about “Bill’s” run in with the Camel at the zoo during your vacation.
Comandment XI-If your bags are in an over head compartment closer to the front of the plane than your seat, please wait until it is your turn to exit to retreive it. There is no reason to force your way down the isle and then back again to your seat. There is just not enough room. This is common sense, you would think.
Commandment IX- Thou shalt get mad at the flight attendant when something happens to the plane just before takeoff. It is most definitely his/her fault that the planes electronics are malfunctioning. Show no mercy in your persecution!
Thou shalt not charge extra for a bag. From now on I am going to wear all my clothes to the next destination.