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Travel: Making You a Better Traveller, Part Two - Passenger Etiquette

If you have followed all of my previous travel advice, you have successfully booked your airline ticket, acquired an amazing seat, successfully maneuvered security and are now preparing to board.  In this episode, we will discuss how not to piss off your fellow travellers.  This is more important than, well, anything so please pay attention.

Getting onto an airplane with a hundred other travellers is one of the most extreme invasions of personal space known to man.  If my following list was mandatory reading and breaking these rules was punishable by death, this would still be an unpleasant experience at best.

Airline Passenger Etiquette - A Life Lesson

1.  Put your Overland Steamer trunk into Checked Baggage.  Those guides that the airlines provide with the carry-on baggage dimensions are meant as a maximum allowed, not a goal to be reached.  The overhead bins are for storing your fragile items and things that you may need while on the flight.  They are not meant to hold everything you are travelling with because you don't want to drag your lazy-ass to the luggage carousel following your flight.

2.  Think of the Seat Armrest as an Invisible, Impenetrable Barrier. If any of your body parts have ventured beyond this invisible line, immediately correct and apologize.  That includes, but is not limited to, shoulders, elbows, knees, feet and abdomen.  If there comes a time that you need to impose on someone's personal space because you forgot to pee before boarding and you have had a steady infusion of fluids, you must ask the victim to please excuse you.  You must never assume that the passenger on the aisle would rather remain seated and have you lap-dance your way out, even if said passenger appears to be sleeping.  Also, when standing up, use your own seat to maintain your balance not the seat and hair of the person in front of you.

3.  Shower.  Seriously.

4. Just because your Seat can Recline, does Not Mean that It Must. Fully reclining your seat is a huge intrusion into the limited amount of space that the person behind you has available.  If it is a long, overnight flight and the Flight Attendants have turned down the lights, acceptable.  Short flights, food or beverage service times, middle of the day; act like it's the middle of the day and sit up.

Exhibit A:  This picture was taken prior to taxi (yes, before the flight) around noon:

Is this really necessary?

5.  Children...*sigh*. If they are your children, they are your responsibility.  Take control!  Do not feed them every piece of airport sugar available prior to the flight.  Do not allow them to make faces and yell through the crack between the seats.  Do not allow them to touch people as they run up and down the aisles.  Do not ask your childless neighbour to hold them so you can eat your meal.  Do not fly with more children than you can handle; I strongly suggest no more than a 1:1 ratio.  Please consider flying during their regular sleep time and feel free to discuss mild sedation therapies with your family doctor.

6.  Conversation with your Flight Neighbour.  Really not mandatory.  Pleasantries are fine but, if your neighbour answers with one word, smiles politely and then goes back to her reading, you likely should not be asking about her job, children, home address and political views and it's probably safe to assume that she doesn't want to know about yours.  We are all forced together in our assigned seats so, please, do not consider a flight as a place to make business contacts or find a date.

Enjoy your flight and try to let others enjoy theirs.

Lunch with the Kids. Better than Dinner Theatre.

1.  Conversation with a sixteen-year-old boy:

Him, “Did you see that lady in the jean jacket?”

Me, “Sure.  I think she’s a little off.”

Him,  “Honestly, Mom, crazy people really freak me out.  You never know what they are going to do.  They could, like, rip their eyeball out and throw it at you.  Or, worse, they could drill their thumbs into your eyeballs, which would hurt even more.”

That conversation happened less than three minutes following a discussion on university programs.

2.  Conversation with the sixteen-year-old boy and his twenty-year-old sister, over lunch:

Her, “I will be getting an A for my forensic psychology final.  One of the questions was referring to a difficult circumstance surrounding an interview with a recovered Child Soldier.”

Me, “Excellent!”

Him, “We should get a cat.”

Her, “I love your A.D.D.”

Him, “Not A.D.D.  I thought about how the Child Soldiers were drugged to get them to cooperate and then I remembered how we drugged our cats, funny, and then I thought that we should get a cat again.”

Her, “It was cat nip."

Him,  "Not like we had her wrapping her lips around a hookah.”

Her, “Cats don’t have lips.... right?”

3.  Mid-meal revelation by the boy:

Him, “Did you know that you can get fart-blocking underwear??”

Us, “.....”

Him, “They have charcoal built into them for filtration.”

Me, “That would block the smell, not the sound.”

Him, “Of course.  Some guy invented them because his wife farted too much.”

Other memorable conversations included the future of hairlines, the fact that my eyes look Asian when I smile (observation from the boy), which countries give sucky haircuts and the amazing Spanx.

Always worth the price of admission.

Parenting Test

Please read the following questions carefully before answering.

Question #1:

If it is -14C (7F) outside and you must go shopping in a large fabric store in Helsinki and you have with you one baby and one dog, what do you do with the baby?

Question #2:

What do you do with the dog?

Please understand that I have never claimed to be a great parent but even I knew the right answer to that one.

Bringing in 2010 With a (Few) Bangs

This past New Year's Eve I discovered something I Love about The Netherlands and, at the same time, the offspring discovered something they did not previously know about me.

Anyone over the age of sixteen years old in The Netherlands can purchase enough explosives fireworks to sink Sweden and you can set them off pretty much anywhere as long as you only do it on the last three days of the year. Because those are the safe days when skin and buildings don't burn in The Netherlands.  The laws here are truly endearing.

What did the kids learn about me? That I am a closet pyromaniac. The girl looked a little concerned as I excitedly fawned over the display models in the back-alley, temporary firework store.  As she watched me light firecrackers to throw out the window of the Volvo, she asked me if I was the same Mother who wouldn't allow her to jump on a trampoline.  No comparison, I say!

The Loot!



This made me very happy.

We had a few trials on the way home just to see what we were dealing with; throwing them on ice is very cool, under cars and near discarded televisions: not such a good idea. 

Once home, we packed four backpacks with lighters, fuses, explosives and a bottle of Goldstrike (because alcohol and explosives are always a good mix), dressed for the weather, filled our pockets with firecrackers and started down the city street giggling at how illegal this is everywhere else in the world.

In Canada, fireworks were only set off by some sort of explosives experts after securing the necessary permits, cordoning off 10 acres of land and having the local fire department on stand-by.  Hell, Werner would land in a South African labour camp for life for carrying a fraction of the arsenal that we had in our pockets.  We lit 5 centimetre fuses then ran and hid behind the nearest tree; worked out just as well as far as I could tell.

Unfortunately, in our untethered excitement, Werner, the kids and I managed to fire off almost everything except a few firecrackers by about 7:00 in the evening.  All that was left to do after that was to listen to everyone else who paced themselves a little better which made our street sound like a warzone until around 5:00 in the morning.  Only a few explosions actually shook the house a little.

All in all - great time!  The kids chose to hang with us on New Year's Eve, we only spent money on rockets and pizza, we walked everywhere and we brought in 2010 together while sipping champagne and watching all of Holland setting off fireworks from their back decks.

Things That Go Boom!

NEW RULE...... NO setting off fireworks in the house...... Liam. And, if it does happen, do NOT freeze in place; it is an explosive, not a bear... Taryn.

Warhol Kids

Learn the Game, Kids

My two children are home alone for a couple of weeks.  It is all legal and everything, they are old enough but it seems that on some days they could be put on a display in an acrylic box as shining examples that there is truly a difference between age and maturity.  On days like that, I could be put in a box right next to them; or a straightjacket.  They make me crazy and I am inclined to act accordingly.

It all starts with Taryn's lightly veiled attempt at diplomacy with the phone call that starts with, "I'm not trying to tell you how to parent your son or anything but...."

And, it usually ends with me threatening to send them both back to Canada to live with relatives or wolves.  Real reasonable.

A day later I am still stressing about what to do to deal with this insurmountable issue.  I have sent angry emails, I have sent guilt-inducing emails, I have surfed the Internet looking for boarding schools, alternate job options, nannies; the list goes on.  At the end of this day, I brace myself to make the phone call home knowing that, if they are there at all, they will surely be yelling, crying and giving me the silent-treatment usually in that order.

But no, there is light, happy chatter.  Taryn did well on her midterms.  Liam is telling me about a school project that he will work on over the weekend.  They are getting along fine and have made reasonable arrangements with each other to get household tasks done.  And I have once again entered the Twilight Zone.

At the end of the biggest disaster movies, the survivors emerge, from wherever they have hidden to endure the mayhem, to walk into an amazing sunrise full of hope and promise for the future.  That's how that phone call makes me feel.

I am so happy and relieved that I transfer 100 euros into each of their bank accounts (that's like a million dollars in Canadian money).

They may be onto me.  If not, they should be soon; they are a little smarter than your average bear.

Love you both!  Thanks for being so amazing.

It's Saturday

Watch this.  I'm going to pretend like I have not been missing for (counting fingers) five months.

I would have had troubles justifying to my latest employer that I was unable to successfully prepare for whichever evaluation because I had to keep the world informed about, well, me.  The ending of that last sentence was going to say something deep about astute global observations and civilization-altering politics but we all know that there would be little accuracy in that.

In breaking news, I saw the new Star Trek Movie; on a DVD with Serbian sub-titles in my quasi-barrack prison-style room in Belgrade a couple of weeks ago.  Apparently, that may have been illegal by some copyright rules or something but, nonetheless I enjoyed it.  Star Trek; who would have thought.  When I later read something in entertainment news (the real news) praising Winona Ryder's return to the big screen, I had to immediately consult the all-knowing Google authorities to figure out what role she had played because I hadn't seen her.  Was my illegal Serbian copy a total fake shot in some Trekky computer geek's basement?  Did she play one of the cleverly disguised aliens that spent more time in the make-up chair than on the set?  No, she just got old!  She has very suddenly gone from the freaky girl who acted in the likes of Beetlejuice, Heathers and Edward Scissorhands to Spock's Mom!  I figure that this must have happened about the time that I woke up and found teenagers in my house that apparently belong to me.

In other news, Liam-the-fourteen-year-old boy left to visit family and friends in Canada for half of the summer.  I would like to thank Flight Aware, the online flight tracker, for saving some poor KLM employee from nine hours of harassing phone calls from a seemingly crazy parent asking if they were sure that KLM682 was still in the air.  Liam was unfortunate enough to have his first solo flight be a Trans-Atlantic so while I stressed just a little, he calmly prepared by watching past episodes of Lost to ensure that he knew how to survive on a deserted island.  That's my boy.  One day I would really like to get a good look at the pathways in that brain.

Next step, I have to re-learn how to change my banner picture.  It seems that not everyone is as fond of the Snowbabies as I am; you know who you are.

Winter Break

Well, once I have been ragged on by more than two people, it is time to start writing again (visualize me cracking my knuckles and looking really inspired).  Obviously you people have no understanding of the hell that defines my life right now.

I am currently sitting in an airport pub in Portland, Oregon watching my final flight home delay even more while sipping a glass of merlot.  The merlot is the pub's by-the-glass house wine and it is not totally offensive except for the dry, floating cork pieces in the glass.  I didn't even ask what it was if that is any indication of how my week has been.

I have just spent the past week in Orlando, Florida doing the Disney thing with my Mom, the two offspring and the boyfriend of the older offspring (now Ex-boyfriend, I guess... thank you, Facebook, for that update).  As much as I love to do the whole "family get-together" thing, we seriously need to go somewhere else from now on.  Unless, of course, the goal here is to drive me totally insane... hold on, I just felt a twitch.

You see, I hate crowds.  I strongly dislike people pushing me through line-ups to get on to mindless amusement park rides that I have paid hundreds of dollars to go on.  Wait, there must be more.  Let's not overlook the overt commercialism, poorly trained children (generally not mine), flight delays, rude "customer service" representatives (Sony and American Airlines; expect my letters) and crazy drivers (yes, okay when I do it because I am a trained professional).

Normally, I am able to tolerate all of this in the spirit of the holidays and family and Mickey Mouse and all of that shit but, this year the Gods of Insanity have thrown in an extra bowling pin; I accepted a job offer on another continent on December 9th to start on January 12th.  Do the math; seemingly impossible.

Of the four weeks that I had available to change my entire life, I spent two weeks of it working and a week of it at Disney World.  When I do eventually get home tonight (hopefully), I will have exactly two days to prepare for the movers, one day to clean the house and get a haircut before I leave the country in just enough time to suffer jet lag on the first day of my new life.  I challenge any of you to beat that planning.

I admit that I am, historically, a procrastinator.  I had no idea that this seemingly subtle part of my personality was, well, not so subtle until The Boy told me that I would have accomplished no more than I have, even if I had been given six months notice.  Don't you have an X Box game to play instead of analyzing my personality disorder, Ass?  This time would have been different!  I would have carefully planned my move around timely renovations and orderly life-changing-like manoeuvres.

But, I enjoyed myself; here's proof:

That big round thing on my waist is a button that the kids made me wear saying that it was my birthday.  The Disney staff are apparently mandated to wish one a Happy Birthday if you are wearing the official button.  I did the full body startle every time I heard some stranger emphatically wish me, personally, a Happy Birthday!

But, there is always good news..... I was just asked to produce ID for my glass of wine.  That just never gets old!

The laptop battery is showing an exclamation mark and I should likely stumble on down to my gate in case there is an airplane there, so.... more to follow.

'Tis the Season

So.....how do you like the new banner?  I would be willing to bet that you never thought that Snowbabies could look like they are about to surround you and Zombie-attack you.  Photoshop is the best!  Snowbabies; made by my Mom.

Today I managed to put up the tree, put together a donation box of seasonal decorations that I can't believe I ever put out, reload a new Blackberry and organize camping gear (don't ask).  All this and more because I have a paper due.

And, I made this:

Kind of made it or put it together anyway.

On another note, it is my beautiful girl's eighteenth birthday today.  She is now able to vote although she is three months too late and she is able to legally consume alcohol in some provinces though not the one she has chosen to live in.  I am sure that she is, at this moment, sitting in the living room sipping tea and wishing that she was living in Alberta so she could be partying in the bar.

This one's for you, Baby!

Don't cringe too much, this ad paid a fair contribution to your RESP.