In transit

I.

On a recent flight to Kauai, our plane was delayed six hours, which is roughly an hour longer than the flight from Oakland to Kauai actually is. So instead of a five hour flight to Kauai, it turned into a 12+ hour ordeal that involved a lot of sitting around Terminal 1. This lengthy airport wait included ample time with the people who were also waiting to board our flight, although one family in particular seared itself into my memory, mostly because of its matriarch.

They looked pretty normal, for the most part: slim, tan dad; dainty, dress-clad mother; bony-kneed teenage son; whisper-thin teenage girl in Lululemon shorts just brushing the gluteal sulcus. Very shortly, though, it became clear the mother was a monster. She snorted every few minutes, that tell-tale sound erupting from her face when someone sucks all the snot and mucus in their nose back into the throat. But when I say every few minutes, I do mean every few minutes. And even when she relocated to charge her laptop on the other side of the gate, I could still hear her, suck-snort-suck-snort. Gross. But there was also the picking. No, not involving the nose this time (why would she need to pick her nose when her air ducts are so efficiently able to clear everything away like a Dyson Cyclone V10?), but the perpetual plucking of her underwear from her butt. It doesn't seem like the most comfortable outfit for a several-hour plane ride if you are constantly having to adjust your shit. I mean, I even saw her having to pluck the front at one point, which seems like a very personal, bathroom stall sort of activity. (Of course, at five-and-a-half months pregnant, I'm in no position to be harping on anyone's style or clothing adjustments. After all, most of my recent maternity shirt purchases have made me look much closer to a bright green sea cow than an actual human being.)

After watching this woman's gangly children consume chicken fingers with fries, teriyaki chicken bowls, two pizzas, and a couple of bags of chips, I wasn't sorry to hear we would finally be able to board the plane and be on our way to Kauai.

Of course, the same family was on our return flight, because the worst people are always on the return flight. [A few years ago, we went to Mexico for a week. I always request an aisle seat, because I get a little claustrophobic and my knee starts to hurt if I don't pop it every so often. We took our assigned seats, but soon enough a group of drunken surfer people boarded the flight. Three women, in what you could barely call clothing, took the three seats on the opposite side of the aisle from us. Their dude friend had the window seat in our row. After we stood up to let him into his window seat, then resettled ourselves, he leaned over and said, "Do you mind switching seats with me? So I can sit next to my friends?" I hesitated for a minute, because yes, I actually did mind switching with him. I reserved an aisle seat for a reason, but I understood wanting to sit with friends. Before I could say anything, though, he added, "If you don't switch with me, I'm just going to talk over you with my friends for the whole flight." Ummmm.... are you giving me an ultimatum? Against better judgment, we caved, and I switch seats with him. Guess how much talking he did with his friends? About as much as one does when they immediately fall asleep. Of course, going through customs, none of these surfer people had a pen, meaning they all had to borrow mine to complete their customs forms, and do you think they returned my pen to me? NO. Needless to say, I was very disappointed, but not at all surprised, when they were on our return flight: tanner and drunker than ever.] Anyway, when our little nuclear family showed up for the return flight from Kauai, I was a little surprised (ten days in Hawaii seems like a long vacation for a family of four) but also completely not surprised. They were all wearing the same outfits they had been wearing on the way over (and, for the record, ain't no shame; so was I), so I knew I was in for some snot-sucking, butt-picking action. Fortunately, we were not delayed again, so our airport time with "the family" wasn't long. After watching the mother-monster elbow and shove her way to the front of the general boarding line, I heard one last farewell snort-suck and bade them farewell.

II.
We'll preface this next section by freely admitting that I haven't always been a huge follower of rules. Of course, many of the rules I shunned in my formative years were ones that didn't seem all that important. Do not chew gum in school: How would I make sure there wasn't the lingering scent of fried mozzarella sticks on my breath if that cute boy with the perpetual ski google tan ever decided to talk to me [and in case you're wondering, he didn't]? You must wear socks to school: How would all of my classmates be able to appreciate my cute new sandals and pedicure? You must wear your uniform shirt tucked into your pleated uniform khakis: Ummmmm.... just, no.

But somewhere along the way, I became a big proponent of rules. Maybe not alllllll of the rules, allllll of the time. Like, there was that one protected left-hand turn at the intersection of Carroll and Third in San Francisco that never turned green. At two in the morning, long after the last MUNI train had whistled goodnight and there was nary another vehicle in sight, I may have willingly run that red light. Once or twice. And that whole thing about not using the garage at my new apartment complex as storage space. Well, if my bikes and the stroller for my baking baby fit there, and all of the other neighbors do the same, is it really hurting anyone? And that, I think, is the key. My decision not to wear socks with my high school uniform or keep my bike in the garage doesn't affect the safety or comfort of other people.

When board said flight from Kauai to Oakland, I did not immediately notice that the mother, son, and father were seated in the row directly in front of us. Which means I also didn't notice that gangly Lululemon girl was seated in seat 22A, directly next to my husband. It was not until the flight attendants provided the first announcement to unplug all electronic devices from the seat outlets that I paid her any attention at all. Because she didn't unplug. In fact, she didn't unplug the first five times they made the announcement. The flight attendants make three rounds up and down the aisle, obviously not being very thorough in their work, because it wasn't until the third time that Marla (whose name I happen to know from her sharp-tongued mother's admonishments of her) finally unplugged her iPhone. Here's the thing: Is it unsafe to keep your phone plugged in during takeoff? Probably not. There hasn't been any research on it either way. Does it really matter if one person keeps their phone plugged in? Probably not. What does matter is that the plane isn't taking off until your phone is unplugged. On some flight to some place in the not-too-distant past, the flight attendant said over the intercom that they have a light in the attendant's station that tells them when someone is plugged in. Is this true? Fuck if I know, but since those flight attendants made five announcements and three sweeps down the aisle to check every goddamn outlet, something tells me that they must know, and if they know, this damn plane isn't going anywhere until Marla unplugs her phone. So, just follow the stupid rule and unplug your phone the first time around, because there is a plane full of passengers--147 of them, in fact--whose comfort you are violating every second the plane stays on the ground.

Can I really blame Marla for being a pile of shit, though? When her mother shrieked, "Don't touch me!" at her son as the passengers were deplaning, when she barked orders at her family the entire way through the terminal to baggage, when she barreled her way through the Uber/Lyft pick up area not caring whose luggage she knocked over, it just reinforced what everyone already knows. Shitty people make shitty children. Hopefully, with a little luck and a lot of foresight, my fetus won't turn into a shitbag. Hopefully, I'll never be such a miserable mother that I tell him not to touch me.