1) Seat Selection
When flying, especially over an ocean, I always choose an aisle seat. While the window provides better comfort for sleeping, I have the bladder of an 85 y/o woman and need direct access to the bathroom to expel the mountainous volume of soda I consume daily. Now, I booked this flight 4 months in advance, so you'd think they could have honored my request. Nope. I got stuck in the window seat. This is made double terrible since most people try and sleep on these flights, so I either have to be an asshole and wake them up constantly or strategically go to the bathroom when I see them stirring and hold it in otherwise. Not fun. Much worse than waiting in line for the bathroom at a bar. On this particular flight... both people in my aisle were sleeping. I got up once. Ugh.
2) Space
Now I realize flying in coach generally does not provide much room. This is one of the few times I'm delighted to be shorter than Danny Woodhead. I can usually carve out enough space to be comfortable with someone reclining in front of me, even with my claustrophobia. On this flight, the seat in front of me reclined so much that it was pretty much directly in my face. Combined with being in the window seat, I had the shakes for most of the flight and there was nothing I could do about it. I realize coach is the cheapest option, but I'm not a fucking cow (regardless of my post directly below this about my potato chip dream). I need SOME space to breathe.
3) No Music
This is half my fault, half the airline's fault. First, my culpability: I'm an idiot and dropped my iPod as the flight was taking off. I was taking it out of my pocket by the headphones cord, as per usual, when the cord got disconnected and it fell beneath my seat. Yes, I know I'm an idiot. HOWEVER, due to the lack of space (see #2), I had no ability to reach it. I could not scrunch up enough to search beneath/beside my seat (and this coming from a person who once fit into a dryer on dare... at the age of 18). When I finally got some space, I couldn't get it... because it wasn't beneath my seat. So I turned around to ask the person behind me if it was there.... BUT SHE WAS SLEEPING. argh. So it took another hour before she woke up and I could ask her... but she had no clue what I was saying, it took about 5 minutes of me explaining what I wanted her to do before she realized the mp3 player at her seat was not, in fact, delivered by the airplane fairy and was dropped by me. How did it even fall that far? Fucking mysteries of life...
4) No Personal TV
China Eastern did this too, but it bears repeating, if you are penning people up for more than 10 hours... it's kinda nice to give them personal tvs. This shouldn't be some luxury only afforded to those in Business and First Class. Every airline I have ever flown internationally has had these except for the Chinese ones. Is it really that much to ask to let me occupy myself instead of twiddling my thumbs if I don't feel like sleeping?
5) The Lighting
While I am by no means a grizzled veteran of transpacific flights, I have flown enough to know general procedure. Usually after you enter the plane, they start attempting to acclimate you to the time zone of wherever you are going. This flight took off at 1130pm Taipei time, which means it was somewhere around noon on the west coast. China Airlines decided to keep everyone on Taipei time... for the whole flight... which landed at 9pm on the west coast, thereby fucking up everyone's internal clock. This meant... no lights, no movies, and the meals they served were out of whack. I ate "breakfast" at 3pm. Idiots.
6) No Movies
Related to the above two points, for 7 of the 11 hours of flying time, there were no movies. This was apparently nap time. Have I mentioned yet how writing this is making me angry again? You should hear how hard I'm pounding these keys, it's a fucking frenzy.
7) No Headphones
Ok, the movies finally started awesome. I now have something to keep me occupied from my lack of personal space and crippling inability to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately, I can't use my headphones, because they have that stupid two pronged jack that most airlines got rid of 10 years ago. This wouldn't be so bad, if only they had provided us with headphones that fit (see, I wanted to make that all caps, but didn't. Don't you like my restraint?). I dinged the stewardess to ask for some listening implement, but they didn't have any. She asked me to check the pouch in front of me. Nothing was there, so there was nothing she could do. The only thing worse than watching shitty movies is not being able to listen to said shitty movies. ugh. Luckily, with the girl next to me sleeping, I stole hers about 25 minutes into the first movie. She was sleeping, so whatever.
8) Movie Selection
All airlines choose shitty movies, but these may have taken the cake: Just Wright and Shrek 4. Nothing quite like the worst Shrek and a formulaic romantic comedy starring Queen Latifah. This movie was legitimately painful to watch. I strongly suggest watching it if you have no will to live and just need a little push to end things (do I need a disclaimer here that I don't advocate killing yourself? If so, here it is. Don't kill yourself. Instead, follow these three steps: 1)write a crappy movie script, 2) sell it to some Hollywood studio, 3) profit. As easy as 1-2-3!).
9) Turn Up the Intercom
When the pilots speak, usually it isn't terribly important. Warning about some turbulence, giving some general information about the flight, etc. However, I like hearing things. If someone is in control of my life for the next 10~ hours, I usually like to give them full attention when they want to tell me things. The intercom on this flight was set too low and was completely muffled. The pilot could have been offering $1 million to the first person to stab themselves in the eye, and I missed out because I couldn't hear him.
10) They Are Idiots
So Shrek 4 has just ended. All the lights are on. We have been served breakfast. There are still about 2 hours left in the flight. You'd think it would make sense to show another movie, even if we couldn't finish it, just because people are supposed to be "awake" and would like to be entertained. They decide the entertainment is over for the flight and turn off the entertainment system. I was in all out stabby mode at this point. I really have nothing to add here, I just wanted to kill someone. This is probably why they only give plastic silverware in coach.
So that is the story of my miserable flight. I'm gonna go punch a wall now because repressed feelings have been dug up, and they're too strong to ignore.
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