Saturday, September 10, 2016

An Open Letter to the Passengers on my Lufthansa Flight



Let me start by saying that you were all wonderful. No really, fantastic. All of you. 
Yes, even the two teenage boys in the row right in front of me. It was okay that you kept your seats all the way back, even through the meals, and that you were restless. I understand. It was a very, very long flight. But taking off your shoes and sticking your feet up over the headrest, that was not okay. Your socks positively reeked. It took me a while to figure out that the obnoxious stench wafting through the plane was actually the ripe odor of your apparently dirty teenage feet and socks. 
I didn’t complain because you were kids, but I do think your parents across the aisle should have.



I also won’t complain about the young couple with the baby two rows in front of me. Actually, I liked your dreadlocks, casual attitude to baby-rearing, and your personal clothing style. All was good. 
But–guys, seriously. If you travel long distances with an infant, I have a suggestion: 
Pack all your baby stuff in one bag. Really, it’s not difficult. That way, you’ll have everything in one bloody place, and you won’t have to climb on other passengers’ seats or armrests to dig through your three bags in the overhead bin while dear dads trousers slipped and showed off your pubic hair to your hapless fellow travelers. We really didn’t want to see that, and certainly not every thirty minutes. Those diapers, crackers, bottles, baby food, and pacifiers would have been so much happier together in one bag stowed under the seat in front of you. 




And to the sweet elderly Italian lady next to me: You would have felt much better if you’d accepted and drunk the water and juice they kept offering us. Yes, I know you felt dizzy; trust me, it’s called dehydration. 
And that medical emergency: “Is there a doctor or nurse aboard?” came over the PA while we were flying over Greenland with nothing below us but rocks, ice, and snow,
I was picturing a rough emergency landing in Goose Bay or some other God-forsaken glacier-surrounded village, but thankfully the emergency passed, and we flew on.





So, dear passengers, thank you for such an exciting flight. 
I could have done without the smelly socks, the exposed lower belly, and the dizzy old lady, but the food was great, the service was friendly, and we were on time. 


What more can one expect? 

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