So I traveled this weekend to visit family. I'm no stranger to air travel, but it's been a couple of years since I've flown. I pretty much went into this thing knowing that somewhere along the way I'd find myself in some kind of amazing social awkwardness.
It wasn't as bad as I thought. In fact, I can't remember a single truly embarassing incident from the first day of my travel. I would like to mention that I saw a nun with a much nicer cell phone than mine--something about nuns and cell phones just made me inwardly giggle. I don't know why.
Anyway, on the trip back, there were a few minor incidents. I tried to go through the metal detector before the man said I could. Then when I backed up I bumped into this other airport employee guy. Both of them were really sweet about it, and I've learned over the years how to play off my social awkwardness. Apologize and smile. If you smile the right way, and the other people aren't just total ogres, they'll realize you're just socially awkward and laugh pleasantly at you. And you know, if you make a person smile, even if it's because they're politely making fun of you, it's still kind of nice to have brightened their day. And at 6 in the morning, everyone's a little socially awkward anyway.
Ok. So the really fun part was when I finally boarded the first plane I was on today. It's still prior to 7 a.m. at this point, so everyone is tired and cranky (you know...like total ogres *see above*). I'm in like row 15 near the back of the plane. I get on the plane with my two massive carry on bags. I make it to my seat. I'm against the window and there are these two dudes between me and my seat. They start to stand up while I try to find a place for one of my carry ons. There's no where available. The two dudes grumble at me like two total ogres and sit back down. The flight attendant is like, "Take your bag to the front of the plane." The One problem. There's still like thirty people coming down the narrow aisle trying to get to their seats, and I'm trying to go the other direction. And those aisles are not made for two way traffic. So I bump into people and get a lot of grumpy total ogre faces.
I finally get past all the people, and one of the flight attendants cheerfully announces, "So everyone, we have on board a couple of our country's service men. Stand up if you're in our armed forces so we can recognize you. So these army guys stand up and everyone applauds, and I'm still standing in the aisle like a fool trying to make it to the front of the aircraft. There's no where I can duck down to sit. I just have to stand and pretend no one can see me, because dude, I'm DEFINITELY not a soldier of any kind.
I finally make it to the front of the plane and three flight attendants have to help me find a place to store my bag. Meanwhile ALL the other passengers--I'm guesstimating about 120 (20 rows of 6 seats)--have already taken their seats and are waiting on ME to get my stuff together and take my seat. It wasn't too much longer before the flight attendants found a place for my bag (which, I might add, was not any bigger than most of the other bags--I was just in the last boarding group and didn't get first dibs on storage), and I was able to take my seat (you know, after getting the two total ogre dudes to stand up for me again so I could huddle against my window and cower in my social awkwardness). The flight took off and arrived. All was cool.
My reward for all of this social awkwardness? The total ogre dude sitting next to me fell asleep and was apparently having some kind of really cool dream. He kept moving his legs like he was running--like a dog having a dream. I thought it was awesome. I would have told him so, except that would have been awkward.
Yeah.
Air Travel. It's always an adventure!
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