Travel

Extrovert Airlines

43 Comments

Everyone is feeling cheerful about the news that the F.C.C. will consider allowing cellphone use on flights.

Well OK, not everyone is cheerful. But many of the people speaking up seem to be happy about it. And the problem is – they’re so loud, it’s hard to know what the quiet types think. I suspect that in this age of marriage equality and marijuana legalization, the decision will go in the permission-giving direction, and people who see air travel as an opportunity to read and/or sleep are going to have to learn to live with it. Either they will learn to sit near the engine where no one can hear anything anyway, find a comfortable pair of earplugs, or resign themselves to serving time for Seat Mate Murder – a new category of homicide that will exist as soon as people discover a handy weapon to carry it out. How drunk does someone have to be before you can you smother them with a Delta Snack Mix bag?

Plane_phone

Perhaps the best solution would be to segregate air travel by personality type, putting all the loud, verbal people on one flight and all the quiet non-engagers on another. The crew might also be assigned based on social inclination, so Extrovert Air captains would be on the intercom pretty much constantly, blathering on about wind direction and travel time while the Introvert Air flights would sit on the tarmac, their pilots quietly fuming over the way those gabby ExAir crews chat up the tower.

Until we sort this all out, everyone could benefit from learning how to de-code a one-sided conversation, because we’ll be hearing a lot of them. I recommend lots of Bob Newhart videos.

http://youtu.be/QGV1dTGr19c

When have you overheard something alarming?

43 thoughts on “Extrovert Airlines”

  1. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    The most alarming airline conversation overheard? The time I sat in front of two NW pilots taking flights back to the East Coast. They complained to each other during the entire trip about the low quality of maintenance on NW airplanes. They regaled each other stories of all the mechanical failures they had experienced.

    So not reassuring to an already edgy traveler who likes her feet on the ground anyway!

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    1. I think hearing that discussion about poor airline maintenance would be very alarming, Jacque. I always wonder if those rivets that I can see in the wing of the airplane are secure and will continue to hold the airplane together during my flight.

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  3. On a hike with a guide in South Africa. He stopped suddenly in front of me and said “hang on”. The muscles in his arm (the arm holding the rifle) tensed up. Seemed like we stood there for about a year, but it was probably only 15 seconds. Then he relaxed and we kept walking. He never would tell me what he thought he’d heard.

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  4. It was when my doctor looked a little concerned after examining me. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully as he said, “Well, in men of a certain age . . . .”

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  5. Good morning. When I was a substitute teacher I often overheard kids saying things that were alarming. On a few occasions I overheard attempts that were being made to start fights. I reacted by telling them that I would report what they said to the school authorities if they didn’t stop. I also overheard a lot of name calling which I tried to stop. Unfortunately, there were many times when the name calling included attacking someone by accusing them of being gay in a slanderous way.

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  6. On January 16, 2010 when a GI doctor phoned me at home saying, “I’m so sorry, but our lab test shows
    that you have esophageal cancer”. I’d never even heard of this, so I immediately opened my Mactop and googled it. Five minutes after reading that I was likely going to die, I closed the Mactop, sat there stunned, then created a plan of action. I knew full well that this was the “big one”. I couldn’t figure out how one is supposed to feel about a sudden disruption of normal life or the possibility of not being here a year or two later.

    I realized right away that most people getting such alarming news would likely feel scared, anxious, depressed, and victimized. I decided that this was no way to spend whatever might remain of my life and whipped up a story to carry me through which would be distinctly better. The story I made up was that this would be a really big challenge, that it may be the last, most important lesson I could teach my kids, and that I’d do it with all the gusto I could. This view of having such a dreadful disease made it a mission much, much larger than just me having cancer. It worked beautifully! I may have been the only patient at the cancer center who was energetic and sunny. The bottom line for me was to not burden my kids with doom and gloom or even rides to daily radiation. The weak moments were shared with friends instead.

    Looking back, I think that my endless curiosity saved the day. Researching, joining only EC support groups, asking the oncology staff a hundred questions all served to at least give me a sense of empowerment. It also provided a lot of distraction. And here I am, almost four years later, appreciating each day as a gift in a way that those who haven’t faced imminent and premature death might not.

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  7. OT: Just a heads up that a Baboon gathering is happening this Sunday (while the weather’s mild) at Steve’s – a sort of take-away to help clear out the basement, and some yard clean-up. Probably late morning – email BiR for details, and/or see “Anniversary Verse” day post.

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    1. i was sure it was saturday and had planned on being there. maybe i will go over and help prepare for the onslaught. i have a previous commitment on sunday.

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  8. I can’t find my favorite Far Side, the passengers’ wide eyes as they hear from the cockpit: “Yahtze!”, but this is close:

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  9. Not alarming exactly, but I remember once overhearing on a bus this tidbit of conversation, “he really liked her but she scared the rabbits.”

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  11. i used to overhear things and i had to listen to read between the lines. today if you repeat it three times i may be able to get it. the old ears aint working so good these days.
    when i used to travel to china back in the early days of cell phones many nicer restaurants had signs up saying no cell phones in english. many smaller towns near the bigger cities had been sucked into the 21st century kicking and screming, the white guys coming in and talking loud into cell phones in a language only some could understand screwed up the peaceful meal they were accustomed to having. this wil happen on the airplane also. i may have to laugh because it will likely as often as not be chinese people talking real loud in a language i dont understand like noise in the background. the world is so messed up about needing to get it done now. when the blackberry first hit the market i got one until my friend looked at me and said “you got a crackberry? you’ll never have a moments peace!” and he was right. i got rid of it and it wasnt for another year or two i allowed myself to be at everyones beckon call. what was i thinking? its hard to turn back the clock. i was in the emergency room of the hosptal a while back and the doctor was talking on his cell phone out in the middle area wher the nurses were hanking out and i picked up my phone to call soeone and tha nurse immeadiatley rushed in saying “you cant be on a cell phone with all these medical devices around here” i pointed to the doctor over there and said ” does he have a different set of rules or is he being disrespectful of other peoples lives by endangering them around all these medical devices?
    in china i have alweays wanted to have the chinese speaking guy who was hidden by the cloak of being an american who understood all the chinese were saying so i could be privvy to the untold half of the conversation that goes on while you are sitting there in that situation.
    i also have an invention where when the phone gets put on hold and that awful music gets played for two or three or 15 minutes while you are on hold the receiver is recording the conversation the person on hold is having with the person he is sitting with. it often has to do with the person who you are waiting for and the information that gets said while noone is listening would be very interesting to the person putting you on hold. a little under cover espionage of overhearing

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  12. I am always amazed when people in our waiting room have conversations on their cell phones and talk about all sorts of things in quite loud voices, apparently unconcerned who hears what they may say. I suppose thier lack of discretion may be symptomatic of why they are at the agency for services. I dread flying now more than ever, as I don’t want to be privy to converstions all around me. I hear enough hair-raising things at work. I don’t want to hear it when I fly.

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  13. I know this wasn’t the question, but I cannot stand the thought that people will be using their cell phones on planes in the future. Normally I try to ignore folks w/ cell phones, but on a plane? I’m doing to have to come up with a strategy — I’d rather have a kid kicking the back of my seat than to have to listen to half of someone’s conversation with Aunt Hattie about her lumbago!

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      1. I certainly hope the airlines don’t allow it. And if Delta sticks with that decision, then I’ll have a new brand that I’m loyal to!!

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  14. My mother had five brothers (three still alive) who could be funny characters. They all lived in Sheldon WA in the 50’s as young adults. Most people in the small town knew the brothers on sight at least. But they would always greet each other in town as if they had not seen each other in years. It was a routine they stole from Charlie Chan movies. Another trick was to let people hear snippets of conversation. They got good at inventing them.
    Am amusing sidelight to this is that friends of ours from the North Shore with whom we lost contact after we moved a few years ago retired and traveled around the US looking for a town in which to retire, wanting just something new bu not a big city. Out of all the US they chose Sheldon, not knowing my connection to it. My relatives are all long gone.

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  15. Back in my heavy traveling days I did not carry a cell phone, which made me rare in the traveling fraternity. But I am glad I will not be out there with cell phones in use on the plane. In our recent flight the attendants must have told at least 30 people to turn off their phones after the announcement was made. The young woman by us was texting and only pretended to turn it off and waited fort the attendant to leave. I told her to turn it off. She did.

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    1. I’ve had to do the same more than once. I do have to say, however, that I am always very happy to have my cell when I’m traveling. Came in very handy week before last when we got stuck in Costa Rica overnight – was able to get a hotel reservation quickly from the airport as well as getting flights re-booked for the next day. Would have had to stand in line for hours to do this in the old days.

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    2. Cell phones are not allowed in some public school classrooms. Some kids can hide their phones in their laps under their desks and send text messages without looking at their phones.

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      1. Generally schools want kids to carry the phones because in school attack incidents (including “minor” things you never hear about on the news) it’s kids on cell phones who get the word our or get details out.

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  16. There are a couple of extrovert airlines: Southwest to some extent and Alaska. Alaska flights inside that state are like a reunion between the crew and passengers because the same people ride the same flights so much. The attendants on the Barrow flight used to have dance routines when I flew there.

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  17. I don’t think I have ever overheard anything alarming. Most of what I overhear is simply dull.

    Occasionally something catches my attention, though. Once when I was out in my yard, a couple of girls were walking by, maybe early teens, and one of them was saying, “If you leave your bedroom door open at night, they come in and bop you on the head and try to get you to play with them.”

    I suppose her family had kittens in the house, but it amused me to think she might be talking about her parents.

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  18. How about a very extroverted insurance agency?
    BC/BS essentially for the second year in a row pulled my Medicare support insurance out from under me. My agent, who was our company agent for many years and then my private agent and who is wonderful, figured out I could do much better combining two different company programs but I would have to go to a different agent. So I went there today to set it up. She was excellent and I did set it up, as near as I remember. I have never been in a place that triggered my multiple sensitivities so quickly and thoroughly from the scented candles burning everywhere. New age music playing. Light came through windows at odd angles into my eyes. Purple colors everywhere. Vibrant abstract paintings on the walls clashing with the odd colored walls, every wall painted in a different color. The head of the agency was bathed in strong scents. She was vibrant, alive, super-feminine, and excellent at her job. She explained things clearly, simply, directly, honesty. Sitting in her over-sized deeply-cushioned purple desk chair (she is a small woman in very tall spiked heels and a hippy-era sweater down to her knees over tights) was a little wire-haired lap dog of some kind with ribbons in its fur and wearing a vest. I thought she was going to sit on the dog, but clearly the dog sits behind her in the chair all the time. The agent’s hairdo matched the dog’s.
    While I was there it kept reminding my of something. As I was lying in the dark, I realized what it was: Professor Trelawny and her classroom in Hogwarts.

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  20. One of my most embarrassing moments as a child was the time, I must have been about 9, that my mom took me to the hair dresser with her and, as a treat, I got my hair washed and got to sit under the hair dryer just like the adults women. I didn’t realize that although I couldn’t hear what the ladies were saying when i was under the hair dryer, they could hear me. I decided to sing all the songs I knew, and didn’t realize until I noticed them laughing that they were laughing at me. I was mortified.

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  21. went to the kick off of a new show with heather macilhatten who i first met on tlgms. check it out. its called a beautiful world. the premise it to air the beautiful things in the world instead of the headlines. very nice show.

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