Thank You for Listening

on a flight to Phoenix ~

It always amazes me how etiquette goes out the window as soon as people step foot on an airplane. This is particularly noticeable if you happen to be sitting in an aisle seat.

If you have flown any time in the past ten years, you will have noticed how seat space has gotten smaller, aisles have gotten narrower and overhead space has atrophied. Yet passengers are dragging more and more stuff onto the plane. That means a turf war for overhead space.

Businessmen (and women) are some of the worst offenders. They drag their bulging overnight bags down the aisle as they yap on their cell phones. Worse yet is the backpack crowd who delight in slinging their pack over one shoulder. The upshot is that the passengers sitting in aisle seats get beaten up by these overstuffed, wayward bags. I don't know which part of my anatomy gets bruised more ~ my knee, arm, shoulder or head.

So I'd like to make a polite but sincere plea to those of you who insist on taking all your life possessions on board. Could you get off your cell phones and pay attention to your immediate environment? Could you make sure your bags are in a passenger-free zone and not molesting one of your fellow travelers? It will be much appreciated. (I'm not even going to ask you to consider that others might need to use the overhead bins, too.)

Thank you for listening.