Airplanes

I went home last week to get ready for my mission and to be around for Lily's end of the year stuff.  She's a Senior and graduating.  WHAT.  Lily isn't exactly thrilled about being ranked just 12th in her graduating class, but for people of lesser intelligence like me, I'd say that's pretty good.  So I'll brag about it for her instead.

No, that's not her boyfriend, but this is the only photo I had.  Apparently high schoolers don't use facebook anymore.

Anyway, I went through the temple with my parents and got to enjoy Memorial Day weekend with the family and it was nice.

Cute little people in front of the cute little Columbus temple.

And that's enough about my personal life.  This post is really about planes and cool stuff like that. 

Since I go to school on the other side of the country, I get to fly home instead of drive more often than not.  (Thanks Mom and Dad.)  And since I flew home this past week planes are fresh on the mind.  I've been flying on Southwest for some time, but I'm still getting used to their weird seating arrangements and such.  Since they don't have assigned seats, boarding the plane can be kind of stressful.  They board us alphabetically and numerically off of our boarding pass, but once you get on the plane it's free game.  I prefer the aisle seat because I don't feel so trapped, and I enjoy it when people step on my toes or elbow me in the face as they walk by.  But really, for some reason I feel better knowing that with an aisle seat I can easily escape and move around the cabin.  All 20 feet of it.  My brain doesn't make sense.

Moving on. Once again I was in the last boarding group, so I had given up hope in landing an aisle seat.  And then I saw some open in the back of the cabin and made the trek over there.  I felt relief once I finally found an empty aisle seat, but seconds later discovered that it was unoccupied because there was a baby in the row.  I love babies.  I really do, but I also have ears and I didn't want to sit next to a crying baby for 3 hours.  So instead of being an understanding human being, I awkwardly told the nice mom that I was actually going to sit somewhere else, and moved one whole row back. 

FREEDOM.  Until I looked to my right and saw a mother with her two very young toddlers and another toddler behind me.  That's when I realized that the back of the plane was where all the little human beings were kept.    It wasn't a horrible flight or anything, but I made sure to sit near the front on my next flight.   Even if it meant sitting between two old men.

Speaking of sitting between men, I tend to do that a lot.  Like I mentioned, I'm typically in the last boarding group, so I get stuck with the middle seat.  On my flight home over Christmas break I fell asleep on the guy next to me.  Whatever, his legs were totally in my space, so I let my head take up his space.

The worst part of the flight wasn't the babies.  It was the turbulence.  Sometimes a little turbulence can be kind of exciting.  Just like taking off is pretty darn fun no matter your age.  I don't get how people can just read or sleep like it's not a big deal.  WE'RE LIFTING OFF THE GROUND IN A HUGE METAL MACHINE.  OF COURSE IT'S A BIG DEAL.  Anyway, it was so bumpy that we weren't supposed to be moving around the cabin.  The flight attendants repeatedly told us to "please stay in your seats until the pilot says otherwise," but apparently this meant nothing to the passengers because they kept on getting up and using those tiny suction bowls that pass as toilets.  But seriously, the flight attendants told us at least five times to stay in our seats and no one listened.  Except me.  Me, with my tiny overactive bladder.  And of course I had to go, but I wasn't about to get up and use the restroom after they told us not to FIVE TIMES.  Hey, I've watched LOST; I don't want to be in the bathroom when the plane crashes.

While I'm rambling about commercial airlines, can we talk about the flight attendants?  Let's begin with "Stove"--a great flight attendant.

I don't really have anything against flight attendants, but I've found that they can be pretty boring.  Probably because they have to fly in a little plane all day errday with annoying people like Annie.  Well, on my last flight one flight attendant was particularly hilarious.  I may have been the only one laughing at her jokes, but I was entertained nonetheless.   Before starting the whole safety presentation, the flight attendant began by saying "Please pretend to direct your attention to the front as we give the safety demonstration."  And when she was wrapping up the flight she closed with, "Thank you for flying Southwest.  We hope to see again, and remember that no one appreciates you or your money more than Southwest."  Again, I was the only one to laugh, but I just think that's because I was the only one listening.

I would rant about the food they serve or lack thereof, but there's really nothing to mention when it comes to peanuts.  Except they better give me a couple bags of them because I'm starving and would like to have at least two mouthfuls of food to hold me over for the next four hours.  But I'm not ranting or anything.

Also, I just made this video.  You should watch it.