You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
G.O.R.
Grandiose Orations of Rudeness.
Chatty Kathy’s. Loud talkers.
Airport shouters and public displays of exuberance.
Are people stupid and don’t realize they are loud? Are they rude and just don’t care that they are loud? Are they deaf and don’t realize their words can be heard by others in a concussive zone of occupation?
I am guessing all of the above.
it seems that with mobile devices and social media people don’t care that we hear every word, every syllable, every torrid detail of a life that ultimately makes me say who cares.
G.O.R.
“Hey you over there with the ear buds forcefully blowing words out of your pie hole! Do me a favor and Please STFU!”
So it’s 6 am. The flight is pushing away from the jet way.
It’s pre dawn and I’m wearing dark sunglasses.
The goal? Sleep.
I’m exhausted. I woke up at 3:55 am for a 6am flight.
All i want to do is pull down the window shade, and shut out the world.
I focus on the roar of the engines and allow the Southwest 737 to rock me to sleep.
Like a jet propelled baby cradle I am ready for some ZZZZZ’s.
That is till the 2 women and lap baby take the two seats next to me.
3 people. 2 seats.
I’m pissed.
They sit with shopping bags, crinkling and making more noise than clucking chickens. They are an atomic bomb of disruption as they mash over-sized packages under the seat.
My ears are offended, my sleep deprived soul angry.
I crack an eye-ball to see what these aerial mastodons look like.
Just as I suspected. They are wide bodied gals with wide bodied booty’s. They are big-boned and big-mouthed and lacking in common decency.
The row shakes like a morning at Pamplona as these female cows dig for seat belts, and grind their asses back and forth trying to find the comfort zone for an ass that is in desperate need of a buns of steel video.
My eyes are closed, and my cerebral cortex is dark. But my ears are awake, like auditory light houses, taking in the cacophony of mooing chit-chat.
I sense the lap child moving wildly. He is like an uncontrollable squiggly worm, trying to unscrew himself like a champagne cork from his mother’s hands.
I push my sunglasses up on my head and stare at this obvious train wreck of sound next to me.
No Freakin Way! I think to myself.
A lap child? 2 fat women? 4 of us in one row?
If southwest was a human, I would punch him right in his bags fly free face.
Lap children should not fly free. They should be forced to fly in padded play pens in the rear of the aircraft near the lavatory.
And women this big, this loud, this inconsiderate, should at least be forced to wear muted smocks to conceal the heinous Christmas sweaters they are wearing.
I close my eyes and try to shut out their presence. I move an inch and a half toward the bulk head trying to absorb some of the jet vibrations.
More engine noise, I think. That will rock me to sleep.
No such luck.
The running of the mouths is a fluid toilet of non stop drivel.
Family members. Molars at the dentist. Then the conversation that every traveler seeks at 6am.
LACTATION.
OMG
We haven’t left the tarmac and my trip has all ready re-routed to hell in a hand basket.
“Wanna nurse little lap child? Wanna drink some breast milk?”
I’m not sure any of this was said, but this is how I perceived it.
Aggressive breast-feeding and raising of Christmas sweaters over sweaty boobs and latching on suckling sounds all augmented by southern screeching droning cows of South West.
The woman on the aisle lifts her shirt and the orangutan child clasps on to something big and misshapen under a fold of christmas sweater that resembles a couch throw.
The child grows quiet and I am relieved.
I push myself into the bulk head.
The roar of the engines is soothing.
I feel the tiny dancing stars of sleep filtering over my closed pupils.
“What kind of nursing bra do you wear?”
The question is so loud, so abrasive I feel like I should make a citizens arrest.
The mother of the lactating flyer is so bumptious, so unaware of the situation, I feel like she should be cited for felonious stupidity.
It’s 6:03 am and the conversation has gone bad like week old milk.
The plane is quiet like a hung over new years reveller. Everyone just wants the plane to take off, and the lights to stay dim and people to shut the F up.
I’m pretty sure I checked the box: NO TALK OF LACTATION.
The cows of Southwest apparently missed the briefing.
The two women in the iridescent Christmas sweaters are loud, like a New York City ambulance.
Their topics are so private, so borderline inappropriate, I wonder if they are either bold to speak so loud, or unaware their voices can be heard beyond row 8.
And so it goes.
Over Memphis. Over Little rock. Over Kansas City.
Nipple sensitivity.
Over Nebraska. Over Colorado. Approaching Denver.
Padded Nursing bras.
As we begin our descent into Denver I push up my sunglasses and force open my fuming mad eye balls.
I stare at the cows of Southwest and their filthy little lap organism.
It is smiling at me as if I am its father.
I am not your father you suckling, teething little cretin.
I blink at the child in morse code so we are clear that our paths shall never cross again.
I never slept. I am cranky. I want to throw an elbow into the head of the mother cow.
The woman notices I am awake.
I wonder if she can tell I hate her.
“Oh did you have a nice sleep?” she says in a tone so ignorant I can only assume she is a brain cell donor from Topeka.
A million thoughts go through my mind.
“Can I have a suckle off your daughter?”
“Did Ray Charles pick out your sweaters?”
“Is that child spay or neutered?”
I can’t say these things. What if a sky marshal is lurking nearby. I’ll be deplaning in plastic cuffs.
Instead I smile, weakly, glad that I don’t own a Christmas sweater.
It happened again on the way home.
I am in Portland, waiting to board my plane.
I’m in a row facing another row.
We are staring at people who are 4 feet away from us, close enough to touch.
Most of the group is quiet, reading, listening to ear phones, privately.
Then there was the big mouth woman.
With two ear buds in, she carried on a conversation so loudly, it was almost impossible to think about anything else.
She spoke with such amplitude about so many topics, I was horrified that this was the new America.
Loud talkers with no respect for their fellow man.
And they want to authorize in flight cell phone use?
Screw that.
I’ll pay more for a non stop with passengers from the deaf-mute school.
I literally began taking notes of what loud mouth woman was saying.
I’m not sure who she was talking to; it sounded like a business associate. The topics ranged from the business deal that was just ok, and the co-worker who didn’t meet expectations to the wonderful wedding dress designer in NYC.
This woman was so obnoxious, it was like shoving all the women of Sex in the City in the same body and having them all whine at once.
“Wedding dress alterations and no way to ship it to Italy.”
“He is coming with Brendan.”
“Jane said Lori might have to go to Seattle and she is not doing well health wise.”
I try to gain eye contact with anyone.
Am I the only one who is experiencing this auditory insanity?
The woman of tremendous amplitude continues.
“Oh my God! tell him congratulations. No she didn’t do well. I think yours was more drama. Ours was what we expected. Oh new York was magical We went to three dress shops.”
And then out of nowhere.
“OK Bye Bye.”
The big mouth woman with the ear buds and hard leather face was done flapping her gums.
Then in a moment that me snort snot through my nostrils, she turns to the poor man beside her and says;
“Did they make an announcement about our flight?”
I can tell the man wants to flick her in the face. But he is polite and says; “yes, they said we will be boarding soon.”
She smiles, says thanks, then unbelievably, makes another call.
“HI. YES. I’M STILL IN THE AIRPORT. YES. JUST CHECKING IN. OH. I KNOW. SO COLD. SO HOW ARE THINGS!!”
I bury my face in my hands and taste the bile of frustration.
Loud talkers and a lack of manners.
The new America is a dirty frontier without rules or social etiquette.
But at least bags fly free.
Life’s Crazy™