Traveling with Tards

I travel a lot. Sometimes for work, sometimes for pleasure, but regardless of the reason, I have found myself flying all over the world this past year. It's been fantastic. I love to travel, because traveling is an adventure. But, there have definitely been some less exciting parts to my trips. I'm thinking particularly about being stuck in confined spaces with annoying people for extensive periods of time. Old people, young people, fat people, infants. Especially infants. You know, the ones that start crying as soon as the plane takes off and don't stop until you've landed. The ones that just so happen to be sitting right in front of you. The ones that make you want to jump out of the plane halfway through the flight. Yep, those are the ones. Or the toddlers who have recently learned how to play soccer and decide to practice on the back of your seat. Also enjoyable.

Even worse than that, however, are the adults who are equally annoying. There's no excuse for their behavior, because they're old enough to control it. But I've discovered that age is not directly correlated to maturity or competence levels. On a recent flight, I sat across the aisle from this guy who was in his mid-20s. Baggy pants, brand name t-shirt, zip up hoodie. Oh, and hand-held video game. As soon as he sat down, he started playing with his toy. And yes, there were sound effects. I don't know that I've ever seen anyone as into a video game as he was. He finally turned it off to answer his cell phone, and then proceed to have a 5 minute conversation with someone who I assume was a lady friend of some sort WHEN WE WERE ALREADY IN THE AIR. Umm, hello? Did you not just hear the multiple announcements about turning off all electronics? Oh, I forgot, all you could hear were the explosion noises coming from your game. What an idiot.

On another recent trip, I sat next to a girl about my age. Cute girl, well-dressed, probably still in college. She seemed nice enough. And then she popped a piece of gum in her mouth and proceeded to chew like her life depended on it. There are not many things in life that annoy me more than obnoxious gum chewing. I was ready to slap that girl in the face so hard that either (1) she would choke to death on her gum or (2) the piece of gum would fly out of her mouth all the way to the other side of the plane. They turned on the approved electronics sign just in time for me to blast music on my ipod. She got lucky.

Just yesterday, I flew from Helsinki to London, and I had to go through customs at Heathrow. It's a rather large airport, and there are always a ton of people there. So I get in line to go through the security check, and I just so happen to get behind this guy who takes it upon himself to walk as slowly as is humanly possible. He had a sort of distinctive walk- the kind where you kick your leg out in front of you before actually taking a step forward. He was walking (and pulling his suitcase) so slowly that I nearly tripped over it several times. I was peeved.

These are just a few examples of the kind of people I've been fortunate enough to experience on my travels. There are many, many more, and I'm sure that my patience will be tested again. But if this is what I have to deal with in order to continue my traveling adventures, then so be it. Just know that if you decide to be an idiot, you will have a blog written about you!