There's something about seeing a 90 lb. 90-year-old elbow her way to the front of the plane (because God-forbid anyone reach the empty baggage claim area before she does) that both alarms and amuses me. It's so raw, so wild, so impolite, so...STUPID! I see it in the young, the old, the big and the small: manners and logic fly out the window when people fly anywhere.
To all those people with seating assignments in zone 6 who insist on crowding around the front of the boarding line like rabid wolves, waiting for your zone to be called...SIT DOWN. Your being at the front of the line is not going to make the plane take off more quickly. In fact, it confuses the people in zones 1-5, who stand behind you, thinking that you're in their zone and that they need to wait behind you. Congratulations, geniuses, you single-handedly just slowed down the boarding of the entire damn plane and now we're 15 minutes behind-schedule because of that.
Look at the 15-seat-deep stomach-to-back-tight line for the bathroom at any given moment in the flight...Listen to the clamor of clicking as everyone scrambles to unfasten their seat belts the very microsecond the captain turns off the "fasten seat belt" sign when the flight is over...all so they can squeeze themselves into an over-crowded aisle where they push and shove to grab their bags. Humans have such an intense desire to be first and such a deep distaste for being cooped up that they will blindly sabotage their own efforts in their misguided attempts to obtain their freedom. First.
Sit your ass down in your seat and wait for those first 30 aisles ahead of you to empty out instead of constipating the aisle any further with your farty-plane-seat stench and your awkward carry-on that, let's face it, is so damn big, it should have been checked.
Oh, and if you're one of those lovely people with a window seat who insists on standing up next to me at the end of the flight to let me know you want out, DON'T WORRY. I'll let you brush past me the very moment the aisle beside me clears enough for you to do so. It is not okay to wedge yourself between me and the seat in front of me and breathe down my neck. There's no room in the aisle for me, so why do you think there's going to be any room for your double-wide?
Life is much less stressful when you just let go and let people go before you. How many minutes do you really gain in your frantic rush? 1? 2? Is that worth the stress? If you truly can't wait, if you have a flight to catch, exercise some manners. A little "pardon," "please," and "thank you" go a long way and have the curious effect of clearing a pathway instantaneously.
