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March 11, 2011
The Airbus A320 Submarine
I get up this morning and decide I'll fly my 600mm lens back to CO so I hop onto the bike, balance the Canon suitcase between my legs on the gas tank, and pretty soon I'm rolling south on US101. There's a lot of traffic on this route and I've been down this road on a dirt bike before and I've never liked the feeling. It's too busy. Way crazy.
But I get down to the remote parking and park my bike. Whenever someone tells me how much something costs in San Francisco, I always start in right away, foaming at the mouth and complaining about how expensive it is. Mostly just because it's fun, but also because everything is insanely expensive. And, generally, the people serving you/waiting on you, are well aware of this fact. In this case, it gets me a coupon which will save me a good deal on my parking.
Now I head to the airport and go to the frequent flyer line to be screened by the TSA goons. I get to my gate and now mom calls and tells me there's been an earthquake in Japan that killed zillions of people. Not only that, but also it's created a tsunami that's heading for California, due to arrive at about 8:00 a.m. PST. My flight, of course, isn't scheduled to depart until 8:18 a.m. So, there's this 18 minute gap where I'll be strapped inside an Airbus A320 at 13 ft above sea level, waiting for a tsunami to come washing across the peninsula or in through the bay, turning the Airbus into a submarine.
I'm on my laptop watching a live CNN feed of video of Seal Rock near the Cliff House thinking...this is not good.
But eventually, we take off and no tsunamis hit us. When we get in the air, I recline my seat and the guy behind me starts complaining right away.
He leans forward and whites, "Can you put your seat back up? I have no room back here."
"You can recline your seat also. It sort of works out that way." I explained. I hate people that don't understand this. My chair has a button on it for a reason. So I can recline the seat, as God intended. It's more comfortable with the seat reclined. That is why the button is there. If you don't like it, I can't help you.
"But you seat is on my knees," he keeps complaining.
"Then go sit somewhere else," I continued.
Like, if you want to get in a fight over it, then let's go. But I'm not flying halfway across North American with my seat bolt upright because some total stranger was inconvenienced. Too bad. Deal with it. Or go sit somewhere else. There are other open seats on the flight.
So now, as we fly across the planet, he keeps kicking my seat so I'll know he's pissed. Every time he does, I lean back in my seat as hard as I can, trying desperately to break it off the frame so we'll land in his lap.
I should have pushed the flight attendant call button and said "Excuse me, but the jackass behind me is too dumb to fly, apparently. Can you please euthanize him and put him in the unpressurized cargo hold with the cats?
Posted by Rob Kiser on March 11, 2011 at 7:30 PM
Comments
seat kicker. thats funny. just so happens that on last sunday's flight, the guy behind me has his leg over his knee and his foot wedged into my chair, no problem but hes swinging his water bottle into his foot. so I think a 6 yr old is kicking it till I look back and see him. I turned around and the mouth cop was on a coffee break so I said "hey, you can stop that any time your ready, cause thats really annoying". He stopped. it was funny cause I didnt mean to word it so bluntly, but it just poped out as exactly what I was thinking. Plus it was after we had landed so hes yacking on the phone and was pissing me off two ways. Lesson here is go ahead and say what you thinking, you'll get quicker results.
Posted by: mop on March 12, 2011 at 7:39 PM
Yeah, I'm with you on this one. You gotta speak your mind because they're not clairvoyant. And, if we're going to get into an old-school fist-fight over it, then so be it. But you're going to stop kicking my chair. Nuff said.
Posted by: Rob Kiser 
on March 12, 2011 at 7:44 PM
Very funny stories! Mine's not so funny. Two HUGE women were sitting comfortably (extra leg room aisle - emergency exit) in the seats in front of me, when all of a sudden the stewardess asks them to please move so the couple with the toddler can have more room for the toddler to play. This is the one time I'm sure, that the entire plane was on the fat fliers' side. No one said a word though.
Posted by: Franklin on March 15, 2011 at 7:14 AM