Come one, come all! Gather up your children and your grandparents, and even your pets! Well, actually, don’t bring your pets, but do circle up and come together with me here today as I tell you a story of unprecedented rudeness amongst the otherwise friendly skies…
This is the tale of The Most Horrible Plane Ride in the World!
*queue thunder and lightning, pause for dramatic effect…*
It all started on a long travel day coming back from blustery Northern Michigan to the warm and comforting climates of Florida. The trip encompassed four hours of flying on two different flights, all preceded by another four hours of driving just to get ourselves down to the airport, so needless to say by the time we were nearing close to home, our energy, as well as overall tolerance for the typical, everyday ignorance of the traveling American, was pretty well spent.
It was at this time, apparently, that fate had decided would be just a dandy time to test our nerves while simultaneously traveling at 700mph roughly 32,000 feet up in the air…
The challenge, in this case, was presented in the form of a yappy, blonde stewardess and her yappy, stupid little dog who just so happened to be hitching a ride somewhere on our final leg home. Up until this point, I’d never had the unique pleasure of flying with anything more annoying than a screaming baby, so even before we took off, I knew that this was going to be a real treat. For you see, while you may think that the regular, old people seats are ridiculously cramped unless you happen to be a contortionist or just unusually limber for reasons which we’d rather you didn’t elaborate on, dogs have it even worse when they travel because according to FAA regulations, they’re required to remain in basically a lunch box for the duration of the flight. Sadly, however, not so much one of those rough and tough, hard-shelled lunch boxes fit for a construction worker or a teenager who’s trying to prove that he’s outgrown his Care Bears lunchbox, but more so like one made of fabric and mesh … that allows sound to travel through it very, very well.
Specifically speaking, there were a few of select moments in particular when I knew for a fact that this was about to be an arduous flight:
a) When yappy, blonde stewardess first sat down and proceeded to apologize to everyone within earshot roughly three dozen times for how loud her dog would be for the duration of the flight.
b) When yappy, blonde stewardess emphatically recommended to everyone in her row that they partake in the complimentary headphones because her dog would be mind-numbingly loud for the duration of the flight.
c) When yappy, blonde stewardess attempted to persuade the working flight attendants to just let her hold him on her lap instead of being left in said FAA-regulated container because otherwise he would bark incessantly to the point where everyone around would want to lock them both in the tiny, air-bathroom for the duration of the flight.
Let me tell you, those folks who claim that dogs tend to resemble their owners are spot on because throughout the 52-minute duration of said flight, neither that yappy, little rat dog nor its boisterous, sorority sister owner stopped barking or talking respectively for the entire flight. Which was even more so weird because while the yappy pair sat behind me and refused to honor but a moment of silence, a second dog owner sat right next to me the entire flight and managed to keep her dog so quiet that questions were raised on what kinds of doggy tranquilizers she had given it before the trip. It seems that not unlike traveling with babies or young children, it’s merely a flip of a coin whether they’re going to behave like perfect angels or denizens from the 7th level of hell. But heaven forbid I get two of the first one on my late-night trip home instead of one of each…
Now that the whole ordeal is over and behind us, I won’t necessarily say that people shouldn’t be able to fly with their pets altogether … I have no desire to start getting hate mail from those crazies who think their dogs and cats are their babies… But all in the same, something has to be done to keep the loud and obnoxious travelers, young, old, and furry, from disturbing mild-mannered folks like myself who just want to get back home to where it’s more than 12 degrees during the day without a migraine and/or psychotic episode. Maybe the answer is partitioning off part of the plane as the obnoxious zone where all of the dogs and babies and guys who wanna chat about how much they love their sales careers incessantly can sit and be as loud and annoying as they want, separated from us normal passengers by a thick sheet of plexiglass to afford us some peace and quiet. Or possibly we just offer mandatory free drinks for these lucky patrons, laced with a powerful sedative that will render their barks, screams, and storytelling abilities mute until we reach our destination. Some sort of muzzles would likely do the trick, too – there are plenty of options here … all we need to do is pick one!
It’s time for us mellow folk to take back the friendly skies again, and if between the airlines with their exorbitant fees and the TSA with their ridiculous rules they can’t necessarily be friendly, then let’s at least compromise and get them quiet once again. Let me enjoy my four pretzels and seven dollar rum and coke in peace – save the barking for when you get to the hotel…