AIRLINE NIGHTMARE
Just about everyone hates flying these days; we have truly become zombies in the necessary but sometimes arduous process it has become. Just consider what ticket prices used to cost and what services they provided in the normal course of everyday travel. Team zombie calls that distant memory the “good old days”.
Post 9/11, there is an increased concentration on airport and airline security. Many of the reasons the security posture at our airports might change from day to day is not always made public for intelligence and security reasons. This arguably necessary evil of modern travel can be a frustrating process for many people, especially those who travel with less frequency. To add to that frustration, airlines now make customers pay extra for just about everything, from bags to boarding order; snacks to the critical space your knees require, security fees to overhead space. What’s next, a bathroom fee? The Zombie Breakdown team wants to remind you to be prepared when you brave the required gauntlet of today’s air travel. Stay informed, be prepared, be safe, ask questions and most importantly, be patient. We can’t tell you why some people tend to lose their minds and can’t follow simple commands when traversing the TSA lines, further holding up the process for everyone else. But they are probably the same people who take 15 minutes to find their row and get out of the isle on the plane so the other hundred people who need to get past them can find theirs, but it is frustrating. We hope you will adopt the mantra of “You have to laugh or else you’ll cry” attitude in some of the truly dumb things some otherwise smart people do when aboard an airplane.
In the spirit of that need for empathetic sarcastic laughter in the face of anger and disdain, the Zombie Breakdown team is reminded of a letter a Continental airline passenger wrote during a flight in 2004. Fed up and disgusted by the cattle-car manner which the airline seem to fill its airplanes, this passenger took to paper and pen to take a stand, and let the airline know how he or she felt. The letter read:
Dear Continental Airlines,
I am disgusted as I write this note to you about the miserable experience I am having sitting in seat 29E in one of your aircraft. As you may know, this seat is situated directly across from the lavatory, so close that I can reach out my left arm and touch the door.
All my senses are being tortured simultaneously. It’s difficult to say what the worst part is seating in 29E really is? Is it the stench of the sanitation fluid that’s blown all over my body every 60 seconds when the door opens? Is it the whoosh of the constant flushing? Or is it the passengers’ a**es that seem to fit into my personal space like a pornographic jig-saw puzzle?
I constructed a stink-shield by shoving one end of a blanket into the overhead compartment — while effective in blocking at least some of the smell, and offering a small bit of privacy, the a**-on-my-body-factor has increased, as without my evil glare, passengers feel free to lean up against what they think is some kind of blanketed wall. The next a** that touches my shoulder will be the last!
I am picturing a board room, full of executives giving props to the young promising engineer that figured out how to squeeze an additional row of seats onto this plane by putting them next to the LAV. I would like to flush his head in the toilet that I am close enough to touch, and taste, from my seat. Putting a seat here was a very bad idea. I just heard a man GROAN in there! THIS SUCKS!
Worse yet, is I paid over $400 for the honor in seating in this seat! Does your company give refunds? I’d like to go back where I came from and start over. Seat 29E could only be worse if it were located inside the bathroom. I wonder if my clothing will retain the sanitation odor… what about my hair! I feel like I’m bathing in a toilet bowl of blue liquid, and there is no man in a little boat to save me. I am filled with deep hatred for your plane designer and a general dis-ease that may last for hours.
We are finally descending, and soon I will be able to tear down this stink-shield, but the scars will remain. I suggest that you initiate immediate removal of this seat from all of your crafts. Just remove it, and leave the smoldering brown hole empty, a good place for sturdy/non-absorbing luggage maybe, but not human cargo.
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The original hand written letter with hilarious hand drawn illustrations can be viewed at: www.lettersofnote.com/2011/03/seat-29e.html
