Hey y’all. I just arrived in Charlotte after spending the past few days on the east coast for work. The intent of this post is to share some of the things that annoyed me during a long day of traveling on Thursday. Any one of these things alone, would not be a big deal, but they made for an interesting day when jumbled together.
1. Airplane temperature. The second leg of my journey, Dallas (DFW) to Charlotte (CLT), started smoothly. As boarding progressed, the airflow in the cabin was nonexistent. There were near freezing temperatures outside, but that did not translate into the “sauna-like” cabin. I convinced myself that the temperature would drop as soon as we were airborne, but it was a lie. I do not know how it was possible, but the plane actually got hotter at altitude. Some flight attendant had control of the thermostat and were clearly not a fan of cold temperatures.
2. Flight attendant saying “gahbaage”. As luck would have it, I had another strange occurrence on the DFW to CLT segment. Once service was finished, the flight attendants came around to collect trash, which is not out of the ordinary. As they neared my row, I could hear one of the women saying “gahbaage” “gahbaage” “gahbaage” to passengers. Initially, it was kind of cute because it was not the robotic “trash?” or “garbage?”. This soon grew old because repeated “gahbaage” to EVERY. SINGLE. PASSENGER. Talk about annoying. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, but decided against it.
3. Window seat person wearing eyeshades and window open. On the same DFW to CLT flight, I had the great opportunity to be seated in the row with the only passenger on the plane who needed the window shade open. Having the shade open was not an issue. The issue arose when the passenger decided to put on her eye mask to fall asleep, while leaving the window shade open. The one window lit up the entire plane like a Christmas tree. Why would she do that? I was so pissed and wanted to reach over to close it but the guy seated between us was sleeping on his tray table which stifled my chances of reaching the shade. This was one of the most cold blooded moves I have ever witnessed on an airplane.
4. Broken seat on CRJ-700. I was seated in row 21B on the final segment of the day, Charlotte to Newport News. I boarded early, with Group 1, due to be an active duty military member. As I approached my seat, I could not help but notice the aisle seat in row 19. The seat had seen better days. The customers booked into row 20, seats C and D, and row 18 seat C, had to be reassigned. This was not a big deal, except the gate agent knew the seat was broken, but left the task of finding new seats for the affected customers to the flight attendant.
5. Guy using broken lavatory. In addition to the broken seat mentioned above, the only lavatory on the plane was broken. The gate agent and pilot made announcements stating it could not be used for any reason. As service began, a guy made his way towards the broken toilet. I told him not to go because it was broken. He acknowledged and proceeded to retrieve a bottle from his bag. He stated he was going whether the lavatory was broken or not. The passenger got caught because the flight attendant started service at the back of the plane, where the single lavatory is located, since all of the carts are kept in the forward galley. She was grossed and a bit miffed when he told her he used a bottle instead of the broken lavatory. I understood because I have known quite a few guys to use this practice while deployed (long story). It was a definitely awkward, but mostly gross situation.
This post is not a complaining session, it was meant to show how things out of our control can happen at any time. I ultimately made it to my destination, albeit, not in the best of moods. Catch up with you guys later, I have a plane to catch.
