Although I fully intended to submit a blog entry last night and finished this one about halfway through, my exhaustion overtook me, and I succumbed to sleep somewhere around the ridiculously early hour of 10pm. Aside from the two hour time differential, my flight yesterday left out of DC's National Airport at the insane hour of 6:40am... so I had to be at the airport by 5:30am. This meant that I awoke at 4:30am EST, and in my little world, that was brutal. I expected to see nary a soul awake at that hour, but I actually shared the elevator in my mom's condo building with a man fully dressed in workout gear and heading to the gym. Those kind of morning people are certified lunatics, if you ask me.
Anyway, I flew Northwest through Minneapolis (because doesn't it make complete sense to route people to the extreme north before plunging to the far southwest of the country?) where it was 18F and seemingly covered in ice. This made my flight to Tucson all the more welcome. However, what was somewhat unwelcome was the fact that I (again, dammit!) had to endure the center seat on an oversold flight.
The good news this time was that I was sandwiched between two women, and if I'm going to be in a center seat, I'll take two females flanking me any day of the week. Frankly (sorry, guys) men tend to be total douchebags when it comes to sharing armrests, and they never feel sorry for the poor sap in the middle seat. They just elbow you out of position and refuse to capitulate no matter how many sighs, arm jabs, or head turns you give them, and you end up sitting like you're in a strait jacket for the entire journey. Women, on the other hand, give up the armrest the second you barely touch them.
One of the more charming aspects of flying to Tucson mid-winter is the fact that the passengers (regardless of the departure location) overwhelmingly represent the geriatric community. I believe the politically correct term for these citizens is "snowbirds," but I just call them annoying old people.
I spent a good chunk of my early childhood in Boca Raton, Florida (another "snowbird" location), and I have colorful memories of my parents' irritation at this segment of the population, particularly when we were in the car and stuck behind a "greyhead" (my parents' terminology) in a Buick, Town Car, or any other American-made land yacht...
Typical Greyheads.
I don't have anything against the elderly, but Jesus, they are really slow. It took about twice as long as normal to board the plane while they slowly shuffled down the aisles and struggled to put their American Tourister fanny packs and medical carry-ons in the overhead bins. And deboarding was even worse, as those needing wheelchairs attempted to hobble up the length of the plane to their waiting wheels and attendants.
I snapped these shots at the luggage carousel in Tucson so you can see just how many geezers were on this flight... just follow the red arrows:
BTW, that guy's head (on the left) appears to be glowing like an alien, but it's only because he had some sort of safety reflective tape on the sides of the hat.
Well, that's it for today. I have a lot to catch up on from last week so look forward to more photos and updates from my trip to NYC and the rest of my time in DC...
1 comment:
Hey, I've been to that baggage claim! As far as greyheads, I call them Bluehaired Smoothgums. Center seat totally sucks - I've been in many a passive-aggressive armrest battle. With men only though, if a woman wants the armrest I let her have it. The way I see it, if my arm is there before the other guy sits down, it's mine. Not everyone sees it that way though.
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