Red Eye

Who knew . . . I would identify a new all time pet peeve this morning at 8am?

I spent the last four days in Seattle mainly for Esther's wedding but the trip had so many other side benefits I almost forgot why I went home (pictures and a post on this to come later when Cindi emails me her pictures). While planning the trip I had a stroke of genius/insanity when I thought it would be a good idea to take a red eye flight leaving from Seattle at midnight PST set to arrive at 8am EST. It would work perfect because I could spend the maximum amount of time on Sunday with my family and go straight to work on Monday. It wasn't until after I purchased the tickets I thought through this a little more but still justified it was the price I was willing to pay for more time at home.

Late last night, I boarded the plane prepared in every possible way to sleep from take off to landing. Head/neck pillow - check, ear plugs - check, blanket - check, eye mask - check, no interesting reading material or music to distract me - check. The woman next to me seemed to share the same goal when she pulled out her neck pillow and eye mask and suggested I put my bag in the middle seat so I could stretch my legs. She then took of her shoes and put her feet up on the middle seat, curled up and went to sleep. The only problem is that once asleep she would try to stretch out and would kick me with her feet. Finally I put a magazine between her feet and myself and she got the hint and put her feet on the floor. I went back to sleep. What seemed like moments later I had this odd feeling that someone was about to sit on my lap. Yup she was trying to climb over me to get out of her seat. I wrote it off as her one trip to the bathroom (it is permissible on a 4.5 hour flight). I had a harder time ignoring this and going back to sleep the second and third time this occurred. On the her forth trip climbing over me I took off my mask and insisted that I move for her. She came back and shared the good news that we would land in 40 minutes. I didn't find this to be good news because I felt as if I had been asleep for only 40 minutes. I struggled the rest of the flight to go back to sleep and finally gave up. She on the other hand curled up and put her head on the arm wrest causing the tv channels on the tv in the back of the seat to change every 4 seconds. By this time I had lost all ability to see the positive or find the humor in any of this.

So which part of this is my new pet peeve? None of the above, read on.

Once we finally landed I gathered my bag from the overhaed and pulled my coat on. The isle was crowded so I had just barely enough room to do this. She stood right next to me (touching me - yuck) waiting for me to move so she could get her roller suitcase, bag, and coat from the overhead. I wasn't budging because there was no where to go. She then asked me to move so I tried my best to step aside but again there was not where to go. She proceded to pull her heavy suitcase down hitting two passengers in the process and plopped it right down in my seat on top of my bags. We stood there for 5 more mintues waiting for them to open the door so we could get off.

I ask you, what was her rush and urgency in getting the suitcase down? She had no place to put it and couldn't go any where. This drives me crazy and isn't the first time I have seen this happen. I am sure my frustration was only intensified by the fact I was operating on 4 hours of crummy sleep but I was hoping someone could explain to me the strategy or purpose of the person sitting in the window isle to barge through and get their bag out before everyone in the row has a chance to get out of the way?

Spending extra time with my family Sunday night was worth the red eye flight and now I am going to bed - thanks for reading my vent/post. The next one will be full of fun, and happiness, and joy because it will be pictures from my trip home.