Friday, June 15, 2012

Foot-in-mouth disease...

I don’t think I’m an overly tactless person, but like most of us I’ve had my fair share of foot-in-mouth incidences.  Occasionally I engage my mouth without making sure that my brain is operating on all cylinders and talk sans filter, but those times are usually few and far between so it isn’t often that I have to deal with the fallout of saying the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time. 

But what happened last weekend?  I don’t think anyone could hold me responsible for that.

I was travelling out of town to visit my brother who lives about two hours away from me by plane.  I’m not a huge fan of flying, not because I’m afraid of it, but because I hate the waiting, then the herding, then the being couped up like cattle.  As soon as someone invents a teleporter I’ll be placing my order with Amazon!  To help make the trip a little more bearable I’d packed my iPad full of easy to watch films, ready to lose myself for a couple of hours in the delights of Disney.  But I didn’t take into consideration my seat mate.

To be fair, she was a very nice girl.  She chatted away merrily as we took off, asking me who I was visiting, but I wasn’t really in the mood for chat so as soon as the seatbelt light was off I had that iPad out of my bag quicker than you could blink.  Not that that stopped her, oh no!  It turns out she had very strong opinions on the movie Mulan, which she continued to tell me all about until I finally gave her one of my earbuds out of sheer self preservation.  That shut her up, and we watched the film with only the occasional aside from her, much to my relief.

Once we started to land the iPad had to go back in the bag, so it was back to Chatty Cathy.  She talked about the plane, about the town we were going to, about what she planned to do over the weekend.  I kept politely quiet through it all, only speaking up when she made a comment about how our flight was delayed by about 10 minutes.  I replied with “It’s a bit annoying, but I’d still prefer to fly with these guys than the other airline.  I’ve never had any good experiences with them.”

At this, my verbose new friend got a funny look on her face.  Normally I would have realised there was more going on than us just talking about two airlines, but I’d just spent two hours listening to her talk so I wasn’t paying much attention. 

“Really,” she asked tightly, “You don’t like them?”

“No, the attendants are always so rude, and the planes are just uncomfortable,” I replied.

“I see..” she said coolly. I should have noticed there was a problem at this point, it was the quietest she’d been the whole flight including when the movie was on, “… I’m an attendant with that airline.”

Oops? 

Still, I wasn’t going to take any of it back.  Their attendants ARE rude and their planes ARE uncomfortable.  But it did put a stop to any more conversation. 

Perhaps I should have done it at the beginning of the flight.

But no matter how much of a faux pas I may have made, it’s still not as bad as one that a friend of mine once made.  She was watching a woman try on a shirt and when the woman said she’d need a bigger size, her comment was “Oh, but that’s okay.  You need room for the baby.” 

The woman’s reply of “Excuse me?” should have been a clue to stop, or perhaps my desperate gestures to shut the hell up, but no my friend just continued on blithely.

“Well you can’t expect to wear a smaller size when you’re pregnant.”

Needless to say the woman wasn’t in fact pregnant … and to this day we’ve never let my friend forget it.

When it comes to matters like that my personal philosophy is I don't care how big someone looks, unless you see a human being coming out of them, assume they just had a big lunch. 

15 comments:

  1. You are much nicer than I would have been - giving your seatmate an ear bud. As far as the rude attendant thing . . . if they're rude, then it's maybe a good thing you said so! Maybe she'll be more conscious of it the next time she's on a flight . . .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL! One can hope ... but I'm not going to fly with them to see if it happens :D

      Delete
  2. I just don't get why people take it personally. It's not like you called HER rude, you just said that generally, their flight attendants are rude. Most reasonable people would say, "Well, I'm a flight attendant for that line, and actually, not all of us are rude. I'm nice!"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was genuinely surprised she said anything at all. She didn't have to say she was an attendant for the other line, I'd have never known.

      Delete
  3. Well you know by now my friend RUDE is my huge thing so good for you in not taking it back :} happy travels next time & I am also kinda a germaphobe so wash that ear piece lol!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL! Oh, I did. As soon as I could I got an antibacterial wipe.

      Delete
  4. Yeah OMG ear-buds are unsharable. You really couldn't have been any more accomodating. And her total inability to recognize your polite social cues that you were not interested in conversation only adds credibility to your assertion about the 'other' airline.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She was hinting pretty strongly for a chance at the ear buds, but I certainly learned my lesson. On the flight home I was next to another woman who, when she saw I was watching Notting Hill, kept telling me what a great movie it was. I decided NOT to share the ear buds that time.

      Delete
  5. If she worked for the other airline, what the hell was she doing on a competitor's flight? Better price too, eh? *wink*

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wondered that too but she'd finally shut up so I didn't think it would be a good idea to get her talking again by asking :D

      Delete
  6. ^That was my first thought haha. She can't change the fact that you had bad experiences with her company, no matter how pouty she gets. She should have been considerate enough to know that most people who fly don't want a constant barrage of conversation, especially as an attendant herself!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Honestly, the way she looked at me you'd have thought I'd accused HER of being on every flight I'd gone on with the other airline. Some people are so touchy!

      Delete
  7. I can't believe she really talked through Mulan and then took one of your earbuds!!! She totally had that coming.

    Also, she knows damn well her airline sucks. That's exactly why she was flying with the other guys!

    Hugs!

    Valerie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know! She kept jabbering on through "I'll Make a Man Out of You" until I was just about ready to stab her with my plastic fork!

      No one should talk through that song!

      Delete
  8. Flying out this weekend with the iPad and certainly not sharing anything but air with the person next to me.

    ReplyDelete