There are extensive written rules regarding airline travel. Certainly in the US, we are given gigabytes of information on the ‘do’s and don’t’s regarding our behavior in and around airplanes.
That shit is easy.
Don’t carry liquids through security. Ticket and photo ID at check in. Take your shoes off for no rational reason whatsoever. Allow yourself to be visually raped at the TSA checkpoint. Don’t joke about “bombs”, even if you’re just talking about the most recent any Jennifer Aniston film.
It’s the unwritten rules that are constantly violated. They’re not written down – but these are common sense, polite behaviors. Things that fall into the “do unto others…” genre.
Oh, let’s take a hypothetical example. Early morning “O-dark-thirty” flights. Commuter jet, with perhaps twenty sleep-deprived humans aboard. If the flight is leaving at 6 am? NO ONE climbing on board this flight slept past 4 am.
Passengers sleep on these flights. Flight attendants are careful with the announcements. With the beverage cart. With the lights.
Someone apparently forgot to inform Mr. Yappy McDickweed about this before my flight this morning.
He was seated behind me, across the aisle. An older gent, in business attire. His cute, young female co-worker in the seat next to him.
This oxygen thief did not stop talking for two solid hours. Pre-departure, i was willing to cut him some slack. It was when he jacked up his personal volume to compensate for the engine noise that i realized that he was an endurance mouth-alete…
After we cleared 10,000 feet, i snagged two napkins from the beverage cart. Leaning into the aisle, i made a production number out of rolling them into tight plugs and then stuffing them in my ears. A few disdainful glances over my shoulder for good measure.
i managed to get in about 30 minutes of sleep, interrupted by his snorts as he laughed at his own jokes. His companion was of no help. Equally oblivious.
On arrival at the gate, he was still going – full bore. Standing up as the ‘seat belt’ light went off, i turned around to face him – and caught a half a dozen other passengers glaring at him as well.
Making full use of my training as a thespian, i pulled the improvised ear plugs from my ears – with a deep sigh and exaggerated eye roll. My passive aggression fell on a deaf and blind man, however.
He never missed a beat as he regaled his young seat-mate with tales of past corporate glory.
The moral of this story: Passive-aggressive behavior is ineffective. i should have hauled off and punched him.
image found here. and if you enjoy passive aggressive refrigerator notes, check out this site. But the mother lode of passive aggressive notes is right here.
Trailer Park Refugee 
This is so FUNNY!
Welcome to The Park, Lagos! Will drop by for a visit when i have more time — back to the office today after a crunchy day trip….
Love it!
Wanna hear something worse? A lady changed a diaper on her baby….yep, not in the bathroom but in her seat. It was #2! My oblivious hubby, who was listening to music at the time, yelled, WTF!! I mean LOUD! He didn’t realize how loud he was with his head phones on. It really stank! I guess he said what everybody else was thinking but too polite to say. It’s still funny to bring it up now and then.
Oh, that’s disgusting! i was on a flight where a woman took out nail polish and remover and started doing her nails – stinking up the cabin. Flight attendant took care of that pretty quickly. Good on Hubs for calling it out!
Probably would have been easier to ask him to lower his voice a little because people were trying to sleep. Then again, maybe not. I would have. And he probably would have got very cross and though everyone else would have liked him to be quieter no one would have come to my rescue.Speaking from experience.
You are correct on all counts, dear synchy! Lesson learned — being a drama queen only leaves me sleep-deprived and looking like an idiot with napkins stuck in my ears! And yes, i’m sure i’d have been the only one to ask… and perhaps he’d have been cranky, but he also might have kept his voice down…
What I missed out in my scenario – I politely ask him to be a little quieter, he gets cross and I up the ante and bite his fucking head off. . . You may now hand over that crown. 🙂
I don’t know what that smiley is doing there, I hate my evil temper.
oooh! sort of like “The Hulk”? some situations need that response – but i understand that you don’t like the ‘out of control’ feeling that comes with it… and at least you weren’t standing on a plane with bar napkins sticking out of your ears!
Yes, unfortunately, just like the Hulk. I’m working on it. 🙂
with a super power comes super responsibility….
I think I may have to blow up and print those tips 🙂
anne
Pretty handy info! I love the other links, too… i’ve seen those notes – mostly on office refrigerators, or on the back of toilet stall doors. Even in the lab once — “Your mother doesn’t work here!!! Clean up your own messes!!!”
That particular note is in the kitchen at the gimcrack. though I’m seriously thinking of replacing it with the discombobulation one in that second link.
i’m sure you can start rotating the notes — keep it interesting! i like the ones that complain about people stealing food… especially the “Jesus saw you steal that coke” sign!
Since he wouldn’t (obviously) take a subtle hint, punching him or cutting off his oxygen supply seems reasonable to me. But then I am growing increasingly crabby. You think?
i was obviously too subtle – proving out that passive aggression is pretty pointless. the over-the-shoulder glare could have an effect on a perceptive human, though. i think we’re both crabby. once i got angry at him, that also contributed to the lack of sleep. for what it’s worth? slept for the entire flight home in the evening…
I think I’d have killed him. However I always carry earplugs on flights in case of this – also on trains I find MP3 players great ways to block out these infestations…
it was a day trip — out and back. in my travel back pack (which i did not have with me), i have neon orange ear plugs for such occasions. for long trips? noise-canceling headphones. but i was defenseless yesterday. also my own fault!
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that last bit of your company’s competitive strategy over the engine noise.” Sadly, it sounds like this guy was just an old salesman with a thousand stories no one wants to hear. I’ve been on at least three flights and in one bar where I’ve heard direct competitors talking things their bosses wouldn’t like. In the case of the bar, they were talking about their upcoming tactics against a competing team, of which I just happened to be a member. Off point, I know, but another brick in the “people need to learn to shut up” wall.
it’s close enough to the topic that i’ll allow it! 🙂 This was an old fucker sharing war stories, trying to impress his young, fertile colleague. i tried really hard to tune it out… but his war stories were even shit. amazing what folks will do for some imagined penile extension. yes. please people. STFU. no one cares. and if they DO care? you don’t want them listening to it…
note to self: remember to leave earplugs and eye mask IN purse at all times!
Thanks, sugarpie! now off to read the p/a notes. xoxoxox
i’m a road warrior, but i failed on several counts yesterday. leaving the earplugs AND the Bose headphones at home? Ugh. But i was complacent — everyone on those morning flights knows to be quiet… right?!?!?
I thought the procedure was to hand-write a note on a cocktail napkin and have the flight attendant deliver to note to him. The note reads “SHUT THE FUCK UP ASSHOLE!”
i should have been direct. politely asking him “Sir, i’m sorry – but it’s early, i’ve had no sleep. and as engaging as your business tales are, i’d like to ask you to please keep your voice down. Otherwise, i’m a’ gonna have to open up and industrial can of Whup Dickhead Ass on you, boy…”
my dear you obviously still give a shit about some things, i’d have turned round, gave the thousand mile death stare and told him in no uncertian terms to shut the fuck up, some of us plan to sleep this flight and if he didn’t shut up i’d sit on his lap the rest of the flight (note, i’m 6ft 200ish lbs, amazon type), after 50 i tend to embarass my friends regularly, god bless them, they are still my friends. at dark o’clock polite goes out the window.
yes. busted. i still worry about being rude. even when dealing with extremely rude behaviour, i don’t like to fight fire with fire. but that “lap” trick is golden! i’m not a tinygirl either – Amazonian in stature and attitude (when not sleep deprived). Totally should throw polite out the window in such a circumstance…
“Mouth-lete” … I’m stealing that.
use it with reckless abandon!
People like that are so stupid and pigheaded they often don’t get anything other than s “shut the fuck up”; of course, very few people say that so they probably glide though life unaware theat they’re being arsey.
Akacat’s solution is best!
agree. subtlety is lost on the oblivious. should have at least thrown a can of diet coke at him.
Yappy McDickweed …… BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I have learned that the MAJORITY of people that share our precious supply of oxygen with are not only oblivious, but apathetic and very self obsessed.
They don’t know, they don’t care and if it’s not annoying THEM, then WTF is the problem?
I have given up on subtlety; no one “gets it”.
i just don’t know how he couldn’t have noticed all of the people attempting to sleep around him. oh, that’s right. it was dark…
Sigh. What a weenie. I don’t think weenies can be helped or get hints. It’s a weenie thing.
incurable weenie. yes. a case of weenie-ism is generally going to be chronic, and probably terminal. cause it damn near got him killed on a plane…
good grief. people can be so clueless.
should have passed a hat around taking up a collection to buy him a clue. but that would have been passive aggressive… er…. even more passive aggressive.
DaisyFae you had me at “I’ll just sit here… quietly” – here’s to surviving till Friday.
you know me too well. yep. fictional title. “Sighing” is not “quietly”, is it?
I always make the effort concerning liquids and have a very big pee before flying.
Very considerate of you! i’m certain that your travelmate appreciates that…
I’ve met that oxygen thief before!
Sadly, they’re not an endangered species…