Friday Frivolity - Leaving Home

Oh the trials and travails of separation.  As this clever you tube video  illustrates, it does get easier.   Happy Weekend! 

Thanks to our friend Sarah for sharing this!

I beg your pardon, but you are sitting on me.

We have touched before on the ignominy of air travel these days.  But what on earth should the well mannered mother do when confronted with a person of largess in the airplane seat next to her infringing upon her space?  This happened recently to a friend of ours who was seated next to an individual who was so ample that our friend could not put the arm rest down between their seats.  Should the well mannered mother request a seat transfer?  Maybe if the flight is not full - but these days, what are the chances?  Should she send a letter of complaint to the airline?  Or as a polite person, should she just ignore the person smeared up against her as best she can?

Should airlines require height and weight info and require people over a certain tonnage to purchase two seats?   What about creating a corpulent zone?  Separate seating for ample persons?   Of course if the airlines were to try this, no doubt there would be cries of "Sizeism" and the ACLU would go after the airlines for their blatantly sizeist attitudes.  With 30% of Americans registering as obese and this trend growing by the day - how will the airlines ever keep up? Maybe we will someday find ourselves an a WALL-Esque world where we are transported around from spot to spot in individual barkaloungers?  Perhaps commercial planes will become like cargo planes and we will simply be driven up in our custom fit La- Z-Boy recliner and fastened to the floor of the plane.

In the meantime, when traveling with children it might be a good idea to remind them not to stare or point at the person in the work-out suit sitting on top of them.

Dear readers, what would you do in this situation?

Air Safety

From time to time the usually well mannered modern mother may find herself in a situation upon which she may look back with a certain amount of chagrin.

The story may go something like this.  The well mannered, financially savvy father may have found a wonderful deal online whereby if he applied for a credit card through a certain, shall we say, lesser know airline he could then fly his family of four to and from Florida for the low, low price of $89.99 or something like that.  And so, while applauding her beloved spouse's economic acumen, the normally well mannered mother (who is admittedly a nervous flyer at the best of times) might have found this a bit unnerving.  Her jittery state was in no way assuaged upon arriving at the check in counter and finding herself surrounded by persons who looked like they might have needed to let their parole officers know they were intending to leave town.  Nor did it help when the cheery airline employee asked "Would you like to use our check-in kiosk or are you paying cash?"  Cash?  It also seemed a bit unusual that so many people had packed their belongings in large trash bags and were using plastic grocery bags for carry-ons.  Yet, one does not like to judge a book by its cover.

So our intrepid travelers move on through security.  Despite all the recent media hype this might be quite painless.  Is it possible, wonders the modern mother, that terrorists are only interested in targeting legitimate, name-brand airlines?  With forty minute to board the modern mother might decide a medicinal Bloody Mary might be just what the doctor ordered.  Nothing like a little Dutch courage and next thing you know the modern mother and her family are all aboard and ready to go.

Fast forward 3 hours and approximately as many more medicinal Blood Marys later.  It has been a pleasant enough flight and the air hostess has now asked everyone to prepare for landing.  The plane is descending rapidly when suddenly two rows in front of the usually well mannered mother there is mamba music.  Some person has left on his phone.  Now we all make mistakes, and the modern mother likes to believe that if the offender had simply turned the phone off that would have been the end of the story.  But what does this person do?  He starts TALKING on the phone AS THE PLANE IS LANDING!  Decorum aside, that is DANGEROUS. Who knows how much attention air traffic pays to these no-name airlines?  What if signals got crossed and the flight is run into by a real plane like Delta or US Air?  In any event, it is at this point that a normally well-mannered mother might decide to say something very loudly in an otherwise silent airplane cabin such as,  "STOP TALKING and TURN OFF YOUR PHONE! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?  THE PLANE IS LANDING!"  And when he continues on the line "WOULD YOU PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR PHONE NOW!" or something like that.

Of course the instant the well mannered mother has succeeded in her reprimand and realizes the entire plane is now staring at her, she would turn bright red and be quite embarrassed even if she has saved countless lives.  Because one never likes to make a scene.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo Images