Sunday, January 19, 2014

How Appropriate - Beatles Tune

(TL:DR - The flight sucked, kids are stupid)



Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC
Didn't get to bed last night
On the way the paper bag was on my knee
Man, I had a dreadful flight
I'm back in the USSR
You don't know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the USSR, yeah
Well, it wasn't on BOAC, but I did come from Miami, and man, it was a dreadful experience.
Miami International is a shithole of an airport and 99.98% of the passengers flying through there are rude, clueless or just outright stupid mouthbreathers who shouldn't be traveling with the rest of us human beings.
The dumbassery is contageous since the TSA and the airport staff  are worse than the passengers. FTMF.


I was on Aeroflot - I was able to secure a bulkhead/emergency row seat- but it cost me $75 and an NBC Sochi lapel pin. And in retrospect I should have stuck with my original seat. Those seats have the entertainment screen and tray table in the arm-
so you lose 3 inches of seat width- and with my size 13 ass, sitting in a size 10 seat- well, it's uncomfortable after hour #8. (or hour #2).
The flight was quite bumpy most of the way- lots of turbulence. It was the typical "north Atlantic arc" flight path- up the coast across the tip of Greenland and across Norway, Sweden & Finland into Moscow - Sheremetyevo.

The dude in the seat next to my was a real gem...
He was a big ol' boy too. 6 foot, 250 or so.
Russki, with rudimentary Engrish, and lots of logo gear- Gucci shoes, AF shirt, designer jeans. He'd been on vacation and was bringing the tropics back home with him...
He got up to stow his bag and he had a bottle of tequila tucked in his seat, which he liberally  sampled through the first 3 hours of the trip.
"So I sleep later" was his unasked-for comment. He offered it to me several times.
I took a pass on that...
The result of his mild inebriation was when he fell asleep, he was out cold- and he was all over the place- most of the time he was facing the window, but quite often he adjust and wind with his head on my shoulder, gracing me with a huff of tequila-breath.
Now, a 22 year old supermodel can get away with that shit- but not Ivan the Terrible...
The first 3 or 4 times I just leaned forward and he fell over, then readjusted to the other side of his seat.
The last 5 or 6 times, I just started jabbing him with my left elbow- he didn't wake up anyway, but he quickly rolled back to the other side of his seat.
Arguably the worst seatmate since the old lady who smelled of cat piss on that flight to Shanghai back in 2008.

3 hours in Sheremetyevo where I drank 2 liters of water to rehydrate - and I was ready for the last league to Sochi.
Gate 17 was full of Sochi volunteers- several thousand (it seemed) college kids on their way to volunteer at The Games. There were a couple variations-
There were several "gaggles" - a knot of 8-12 college girls, all gathered together and talking incessantly, then there were the "Condition White" kids- noses buried in their iPad, iPods, iPhones or tablet/smartphones...

The Condition White ones- These kids need to hear the branch creak a little bit- they walk around completely oblivious to their surroundings, just following th eflow via peripheral sensory perception.

How will that translate into becoming a productive member of society? As an employee?

Gah. I weep for the future.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

1 comment:

Old NFO said...

Glad you got there in one piece... Typical Aeroflot... Pax comfort is NOT high on the list...