Oh, You’re Travelling With A Crazy Person?

It feels like a whole other life when I think about how much I used to travel. Pre-pandemic, I was jetting all over the place just about every week. I was at the airport more than I was at home. Even when work slowed down, I was still all over the place. 

Right now I’m at the Dallas airport waiting for my (delayed) connecting flight to Seattle to begin my Alaskan adventure that has been over a year in the making. I’m also wondering how I used to put up with this as much as I did. 

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my job and I loved that I got to explore the country for work. I just hate the general public.

But to get to the point-

I tend to avoid emergency exit rows when I fly. This isn’t out of a desire to avoid being responsible for other people’s lives but more because, when I fly, I want to get to my seat, put in my headphone and go to sleep. Being in an emergency exit row requires to remain aware of what is going on up until the flight attendant makes sure your competent enough to deal with saving everyone’s lives.

On today’s flight, I was one row ahead of the emergency exit row, wondering why my window seat was blatantly lacking a window. I’m talking, NOTHING. I would have accepted a sliver of a window but I got straight wall. Rude.

I only had my headphones in to avoid any “polite” conversation with my seatmates when the flight attendants spiel about the emergency exit row caught my attention and flashed me back to 2014, the last time I had sat in an exit row-

This was right before I moved to Florida and my mental patient of a mother was wanting to move to Georgia. I ended up flying down to Georgia with her, mostly because I am a travel agent in most people’s eyes. I fly a lot and therefore I am in charge of all travel plans.

We were seated in the emergency exit row on our flight down and it was right about here when I realized that there was a better than average chance that my mom was off her meds as she often did… does? Probably still does. Don’t know, don’t care. A nurse that is terrible at taking her crazy person drugs.

The flight attendant came by to do the normal “you’re in charge if shit hit the fan” speech and my mom decided this would be a fun time to mock the flight attendant by doing those stereotypical hand motions and acting like an all-around smart-ass, despite my silent pleas for her to knock it off.

The flight attendant, noticing this, stopped speaking and asked my mom if she would like to go over the safety speech. It wasn’t in a mean or cruel way, she was playing along with the joke.

But my mom is a toddler.

She immediately began pouting, suddenly pissed that the attention was on her despite her really doing everything she could to get all the attention on her.

When I say pouting, I need you to please imagine a grown ass woman in her 50’s, arms crossed, bottom lip sticking out, with a scowl on her face. 

She was doing that while I was wondering if it was too late to offer to be strapped to the wing of the plane for the duration of the flight which would have been a far more comfortable experience for me.

My mom was the last to be asked if she accepted the responsibility of exit row duties and let out a pouty “yes.” It was at this point that the flight attendant realized that she had inadvertently caused a grown woman to turn into a child and leaned in and apologized to her, explaining that she was joining in on the joke and didn’t mean to embarrass her.

This brought more attention to my mom and therefore increased the pouting.

This was going to be a long trip.

Which it was.

This was the winter where Georgia got hit with snow and ice and we ended up stuck there for a few extra days… because the universe hates me.

Needless to say, when it came to the flight home, I put us on opposite ends of the plane because between her acting like a child on the flight down, her being condescending and annoying as hell the entire trip, and then being stuck with her for a longer time than bargained for, I needed a break.

By the time we boarded the flight home, I was beyond done with her.

My favorite part of the trip, however, was the flight home, because when we were boarding, I got stopped when boarding the plane to let the first class flight attendant bring some drinks out of the galley. She asked me how I was doing and I said something along the lines of “I’m in 10A and I’ll be doing much better with about twenty of those after take-off,” indicating the bourbon on the rocks in her hand.

Without missing a beat, she said “Well, then you need to take this one” and handed me the glass, sending me along my way.

Needless to say, that was the last time I travelled with a member of my family again and, honestly, I try to avoid sitting with the person I’m travelling with if it can be avoided. Not because I’m afraid they’ll be off their meds, but because I need some quiet me-time, especially towards the end of a trip.

Another quick example comes, again, from travelling with my mother. We were flying home from Hawaii on a red eye, which I already have trouble sleeping on. When I did finally manage to fall asleep, it was when they were starting drink service. My mom felt it was important to wake me up to ask if I wanted anything.

Sleep. I wanted sleep.

I’m hoping now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I will no longer be triggered by Exit Row speeches.

Who needs therapy?