4 Jerks You Meet at The Airport

I haven’t written in over a month, but it doesn’t count against my Cradle List because I was technically on vacation. Adam and I went on our first Vegas vacation last week, marking yet another milestone in our epic love story.

It was a milestone achieved only two months after the milestone where I bought him a surprise Vegas vacation for his birthday, but then blurted out the surprise during an argument about finances. I believe it was something along the lines of, “Save your money for the birthday vacation I bought you to Vegas, you asshole!”

What can I say? I’m a romantic after all.

While we were traveling, we ran into an array of personalities, most notably some major jerks. Let this post serve as a warning to you who might be considering a trip. The TSA may protect you from the dangers of liquids over three ounces, but they are powerless against these people:

1) The Security Risk

We watched a woman go back and forth through the metal detector carrying her baby in a sling at least six times. During the entire ordeal, she insisted that she had no metal on her body. After the fifth time through, the TSA guard found a phone in her pocket. She didn’t know phones have metal in them. She went through a sixth time, beeped again, before the guard told her to unwrap her baby’s sling. She insisted it was a huge hassle to do so, but finally acquiesced. Guess what? The baby sling was held together via a big metal buckle.

Even after they removed the sling and she passed through without beeping, she acted as though she was being persecuted. No, ma’am. We – the other 500 people catching plantar warts on our feet as we stand barefoot in line – are the ones being made to suffer by your inconsideration.

Also, her baby was holding this.

2) The Stinker

Air travel has a lot of rules. Most of them are written. But some of them are just common sense. Among the rules that fall under “basic human decency” are:

A) Shower before getting on an airplane next to someone who must sit near your stench, I shouldn’t have to soak in your post-workout musk.

B) Hold in your farts. None of the flights we took was longer than four hours. You can either hold it in, or go to the bathroom to let ‘er rip. But there is never an excuse for doing it in your seat. Recycled air, people!

You smell familiar.

On a related note, as a highly scent-oriented person, I found the scented casinos fascinating.

3) The Siamese Twin

Never, ever have I experienced this one until this trip. I am a relatively small person. When I sit in the middle seat, I allow my seatmates to enjoy the comfort of the armrest. Most times, the armrest serves as a simple barrier for personal space. Not on this trip. At one point my personal space was so invaded that my entire thigh, calf and shoulder were attached to the guy next to me.

He was practically on my lap, in clear violation of the armrest barrier force field of trust. And he didn’t care. I thought surely after he touched my business a couple of times, he’d flinch, apologize and move back to his side. Nope. He was content to be all up in my grill during the entire flight. The only time he detached from me was to grab the headrest in front of him, screaming and shaking violently as we took off.

One butt per seat, please.

4) The Oblivious Parent

I don’t have kids. So maybe I’m not the best person to judge other people’s parenting.

No. Check that. I can totally judge other people’s parenting. Particularly when you are teaching your kids to be jerks. On one flight, a mother had her two young daughters with her. The girls spent the entire flight jumping from seat to seat, screaming, yelling and crying. Then, in order to finally quiet them down, the mother set up a cartoon for the girls to watch on her iPad. Without headphones. Yep, this jerk played “Despicable Me” at a volume so loud I couldn’t sleep, four rows behind them.

“Your airplane is my playground!”

All kidding aside, it was a wonderful, exhausting experience overall. We came home a little bit fatter and a little bit poorer, but happy. Aside from the jerks, we had a great time on our trip.

This is an authentic pirate ship. You can tell by the official emblem over Adam’s shoulder.