Really? #1

A diary about the things that make me wonder what’s wrong with everyone, because I’m not the problem.

I think the best place to start this new series of “Really?” is with a topic that rubs everyone the wrong way: traveling.

We all love the idea of traveling. The vacation, the hotel, the restaurants, the beach. What we don’t love is getting there.

And nothing captures the misery of getting there quite like the boarding process.

If you aren’t in Group 1, you might as well have checked your bag, because the gate agent sure will. I’m convinced the gate agent’s favorite job perk is grabbing carry-ons. There’s something almost personal about it. You walk up with your perfectly acceptable carry-on, confident that you’ve successfully outsmarted the airline, and the gate agent looks at you, looks at the bag, and says the words you convinced yourself they wouldn’t say,

“We’re going to have to check that.”

And just like that, your vacation is off to a terrible start.

Now comes the decision of how mad you’re willing to get about it. Usually, the answer is pretty mad. You can argue, explain that it fits in every overhead bin you’ve ever encountered, or point out that the person in front of you has a bag twice the size of yours.

Well, none of it is convincing.

Your bag is going under the plane, and you’re going to spend the next twenty minutes wondering if you’ll ever see it again.

First Class passengers don’t have these problems, of course. They board first.

They have their own little world at the front of the plane. But there’s something about walking past First Class on your way to 33B that makes you question your career decisions.

They’re sitting there comfortably, drinking something, already settled in, while you’re walking past them with your backpack and neck pillow, trying not to make eye contact. And you can practically hear them, Why is it taking so long to board?

Well, because the gate agent is checking everyone’s bag.

Eventually, they call the other groups. And this is where the adults who are actually children emerge. These people have been sitting comfortably for the last thirty minutes. They’ve been scrolling through their phones. They’ve had plenty of time to get their things together. They know their boarding group. They know their seat number. They know the plane is sitting right there.

But the second the gate agent says, “Group 5,” they’re on their feet.

Immediately.

Most of them are in Group 8.

They’re standing in a line that isn’t moving, blocking the walkway for people trying to get to other gates. For what? The plane isn’t leaving without you. You’re not going to get there any faster. You’re just going to stand in another line for fifteen minutes instead of sitting in a chair for fifteen minutes.

But apparently, sitting down while you wait is no longer an option. We must stand. Sitting is the new smoking.

Once you finally get on the plane, you find your seat, wrestle your bag into the overhead bin, squeeze past the person already sitting by the window, and settle in. For the first time in what feels like three hours, you think you might actually relax.

Then the person two rows in front of you decides it’s a good time to use the bathroom.

While boarding is still happening…

Of all the times to use the bathroom, you choose now? When 150 people are trying to get to their seats.

Please, disrupt the process. Let’s make this take even longer.

The bathroom person disappears into the lavatory while everyone behind him waits in the aisle. People are holding bags over their heads. Someone is trying to squeeze past a family of four. A flight attendant is standing there with the expression of someone who has accepted intelligence is an attribute of the past.

And then comes the never-traveler. You know the type. Somehow, he made it past the gate agent with a bag that clearly needed to be checked. Now he’s trying to fit it into an overhead bin. We all watch and don’t help.

Because we know, it doesn’t fit.

So he tries another bin.

Doesn’t fit there, either.

Now he’s moving everyone else’s bags around, rearranging luggage like he’s playing Tetris, convinced that if he rotates his bag one more time, it will fit.

Finally, the flight attendant steps in.

“We’re going to have to check that.”

Lastly, there are the up-and-downer travelers. You can spot them easily. They sit down, realize they need something from their backpack, get up, pull it out, sit back down, and thirty seconds later get back up to grab something else.

On repeat:

Up again.

Backpack open.

Sit down.

Up again.

Meanwhile, boarding is still happening. The overhead bins are filling up. The flight attendants are doing their best to keep everything moving and all I can think is that First Class might be onto something.

Eventually, after watching all of this, I tell myself what I tell myself every time I fly.

“I’m never traveling again.”

Then we start taxiing.

Seatbelts on. Everyone seated. We’re finally moving.

And then the bathroom person gets up again.

We haven’t even taken off and this guy has decided that whatever he needs to do cannot wait another ten minutes.

I just look and think:

Really?