On Identifiable Luggage And More Hatred

Sun, November 13, 2005 - 9:47 AM PST

Before I fly again, I need to find a way to make my luggage immediately recognizable. Not that this thought is that outside of the box, but do you have any idea how many people travel with a black carry-on and check-in a black duffel bag? Too many.

I also need to find some way not to hate random people during the airport/airplane experience. Take this for example. Yesterday, I'm sitting in O'Hare waiting for my connection to Seattle, and I'm on the end of a bench. Perpendicular to my bench, and slightly off to the side was another bench, with someone else sitting on the end. I had my carry-on underneath the bench - the other guy had his in the aisle. Same bag, both easy to slide under the seat, no reason not to really. And every person that walked between us had to dodge his bag, sometimes nudging me, but always having to move awkwardly. And he kept looking down at his bag, as if he knew that it didn't belong there, but scared to tuck it under his seat as if doing so would be cowardly and he was committed to keeping it where it was. I hated him. He ended up sitting beside me on the flight, bumping into me repeatedly throughout.

And across the aisle from us sat a guy about my age, but stuck in 1992 sadly. He obviously was from Seattle, very heavily involved in the grunge scene. Only not the grunge scene that I used to like... no, this was a weird grunge thing. He did all the normal grunge stuff that you'd expect. Big greasy hair and bushy lambchop burns. Black jeans with holes all over them. One of those trunks with stickers from semi-obscure bands all over it. Oh, and a stuffed animal. A filthy stuffed animal, just covered in stains and dirt and god knows what else. And he held it close the entire flight, or at least whenever I glanced over at him. I hated him pretty much the instant I saw him.

It didn't help though when he opened his mouth to talk. Unsurprisingly, he was in the wrong seat. He was supposed to have the aisle seat, but he had the window. And when a lady matter-of-factly informed him of this, his reaction was, and I quote "well, should we flip for it or does it really matter?" which of course blew both me and the lady away. She wanted her seat. She didn't have to flip for it and it obviously mattered to her or she wouldn't have brought it up to begin with. She got her way. What kind of a world does somebody like that entertain in their mind that such a response as reasonable?

Or maybe I'm supposed to hate people like that.