I occasionally travel for work. Well, I more than occasionally travel for work. I get to see the fun side of some poor decisions made by folks under the duress of a “bad” travel day. That said, today’s flight home was awesome!
The setup:
An American Airline’s flight from Phoenix AZ to Ontario CA, 3:35 PM take off time operated by American Eagle on a Bombardier CRJ900. Translation: a small commuter jet. I get on fairly early because of my “elite” status, and get to my seat 8A, a window seat in a 4 seat per row one aisle in between configuration. The plane loads up, and it is looking like a full flight. In my sleepy haze, I overhear the lady behind me chatting up her new single serving friend; the conversation topic is English as a second language. The Asian male next to her says his English language skills are lacking; she responds with an accent that she too has poor English skills and is from Africa. Then asks the gentleman where he is from, and he says Laos. She impresses upon him the need to improve one’s English in the new western world they are now part of; and the conversation wanes as the Laotian’s English is quite clearly, not on par with Lady Khama. The plane continued to fill. My hopes of getting my half of the plane’s 8th row to myself were quickly dashed by one of the last few travelers; a bald guy with salt and pepper beard and completely glued to his phone’s messaging service. He was probably traveling for Valentine’s day weekend and smooches are given in a video message. Slightly nauseated, I just wished I had the ability to shut off hearing as I could my sight.
The boarding was late; the plane had arrived a little late. The plane was also very warm. Apparently their auxiliary power supply was not working so there’s no AC until they fire up the engines. Aux power is also used to fire up the engines, so they needed an external power thingy to fire up the engines. The first external source was bad, so we had to wait for a second to arrive and then attempt to start up the engines. The second device did the trick and the engines roared to life. A trickle of slightly cooler than room temperature air started flowing from the vents. Mr SP beard was fidgeting this whole time and on the verge of a tantrum. Complaining to his phone, or whom ever was lucky enough to be on the receiving end, and gave quick yelps of displeasure/acknowledgements to the pilot’s update messages about departure/ac/engine startup, etc as if his opinion mattered. Screaming into his phone that, “it’s a million degrees and we’re being cooked like
We finally get underway, and take off around 4PM, about 25 minutes late. 25 minutes of “suffering” in the Phoenix winter heat. During this time, I get to overhear my neighbor toolboy complains to his phone that earlier that morning, he had googled the airport he needed to get to and drop off a vehicle before departing; and google sent him to some abandoned airport. I translate that to, someone picking the wrong google search result and getting fucked because of poor decision making. Regardless, he had missed his direct flight and was now on a 4 or 5 leg journey. I believe this was leg 3. But I’m trying to remember this from memory that gave a rat’s ass. Anyways, we’re airborne and heading west.
The confrontation:
I’m sitting on the port side of this airship; we’re flying westward. It’s about 4:15PM. The AC hasn’t really cooled the cabin down much even with everyone’s vents maxed open. The sun is coming through the window and not doing too good a job of cooling me down. So I slide the windows screen down and allow about an eighth of the window open. Oh, much nicer. The steward is coming down the aisle with complimentary refreshments, but not quite near us yet. I start to slowly close my eyes to fully enjoy the now cooler environment, and asshat’s arm comes across my personal space and slides the window shade up. I’m once again being blasted by unwanted solar radiation. Are you fucking kidding me? Where’s the common decency to at least ask if they could slide up the screen. When it was obviously closed on purpose.
I look at the guy, and he is emotionless. Apparently, in his mind, he’s done no wrong. I reach over and completely shut the screen. Inconsiderate bag of shit loudly explains to me that, and I quote, “Hey! You do not own the window! I wanna look outside!” Huh, last time I checked, I paid for this seat, for a 50 minute long flight, to sit at a window. No sir, I do own this window. At least for the next 40 or so minutes. I don’t even want to explain to the entitled pile of bloody used douches that the sun was making me uncomfortable, so I just closed the fucking shade. I didn’t feel the need to even explain the mechanics behind my fucking right to do so. I just respond to him by telling him to just calm down, the shade is gonna stay closed. He then screams, “This is a free country! And I wanna look outside!” Wow. Yes sir, you are correct, this is a free county, but I’m pretty sure we paid money for the privilege to be ferried at 400 miles an hour, 20k feet in the air. His tantrum continues. “I’m gonna go tell the steward on you because you won’t let me keep the shade up!” Mind you, the steward has made his way down and is serving the row before ours. He exclaims again, “I wanna look outside!” I respond, “fine, go look out that window”, and I pointed across the row to the other window, that just happens to have the shade down as well; oops.
Crybaby now reaches over a 3rd time and opens up the shade. “I wanna look outside!” I leave the shade up for about 20 seconds, and then completely close it for the last time. telling him, “There, you’ve looked outside, happy?” He flips the fuck out and out of his mouth, “GO BACK TO CHINA! THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY!” WTF? did this dumb motherfucker just pull the fucking alien race card on me? My response, “Ok, look asshole, I was born in this country, AND I served in this country’s MILITARY! So quite being such a fucking crybaby, and SHUT THE FUCK UP!” He’s at a loss for words. The African lady behind me speaks up and offers the whiney little bitch her seat which is a window, and he can look out it for the rest of the 39 minute long trip. He audibly and confusingly retorts, “Who the hell are you? NO, I don’t want to change seats!” The steward is at our row and calmly just asks, “Can you just relax and deal with this for the next 38 minutes of the flight?” (directly at both of us) “What can I get you to drink?” The entitled racist fuck acquiesces, gets a drink, and mumbles that he can be a good boy even if I’m being an intolerable asshole. I only decline a drink with a polite “no thankyou”. But I have the fucktard now. I’m just waiting for him to open his racist entitled trap and I will completely own him. The plane is pretty quiet now after most of the folks in our immediate area witnessed everything.
The resolution:
The bleeding cunt of a human must have realised the ridiculousness of the entire episode; and says absolutely nothing. There were no attempts to raise the goddamn window shade. The plane lands. I keep the shade down. The plane arrives at the terminal, shade’s still down. Mr skinhead starts sending voice messages on his phone about he next plans for travel. Everyone gets up and readies to leave the confines of the CRJ 900. One of the guys in the row before ours looks at us for the first real time as he’s gathering his belongings and preparing to debark the plane. I smirk and I realize that this walking talking white piece of shit is surrounded by minorities. He is ahead of me and we get off the plane and starts waking up the gangway. There are a row of people lined up along the wall of the gangway waiting for their valet checked bags. He steps to the side, turns to face me to say something. In my mind, I’m getting pretty fucking excited. Oh please say something moronic, please, please, pretty please with a fucking cherry on top? There’s a fucking captive audience! *sigh* No such luck. He says, “here, you go on ahead first” and his arms open and in a gesture to pass him and his head is slightly bent downward. And that’s it. I nod, just walk right by him. Well, apology accepted I guess. I chuckle and attempt to replay everything in my head as I walk out to my car; this is gonna be a fucking awesome story to tell later. Yes, it could have a much more exciting and better ending; but I’ll settle for the utter humiliation to this embarrassing excuse for a retard’s watery shit.
Another successful travel day in the can!