Rapid Travel Chai

This week passed an amusing debate about using airplane air nozzles like riot police use water cannons. See the post on One  Mile at a Time and thread on FlyerTalk. The Rapid Traveler confesses that, some years ago, on the trans-Pacific leg of a flight from China, he too, crossed into this moral gray/black realm to deal with a passenger in front of him who pushed his recline to the max, which The Rapid Traveler is fine with, but then repeatedly thrust himself back into the seat each time he laid back, as if attempting to burst through. For all his efforts to destroy The Rapid Traveler’s computer, some mischief was well deserved and when he had dozed off with his shiny pate extending into cabin space like a periscope, the lure of Northwest’s turbo power 747 nozzles was irresistible.

En route this weekend to The Rapid Traveler’s beloved hometown, Minneapolis, he encountered a new, bold move. He was settling into seat 2D and noticed a purse in his under-seat space. It no doubt belonged to the women in 1D who disposed of her bulkhead seat burden that way rather than store overhead. She pulled the Shanghai Metro move of men who dash on-board a carriage, take a seat out from under women and children and immediately pretend as if fast asleep, betrayed by heaving chest from the exertion and faint grin on their faces. She looked as if she had been asleep for hours.

This, though, was not quite as audacious as another trans-Pacific flight some time ago when a women attempted to put her carry-on in The Rapid Traveler’s area so she could extend her feet, acting surprised when he refused and pretending to speak limited English (defeated by The Rapid Traveler’s Mandarin).

The combination of being in a great mood at flying home to ‘Minnesota Nice‘ and the first class cabin providing a middle area to which the purse could be shunted decided The Rapid Traveler against making a scene. Had he been flying into New York he may have been like one of those bozo hecklers on the street that wear Giants/Jets sweaters and provide booming commentary on anything they pass. He did grit his teeth, though, after landing, when the women gave him a rather poor, halting foot massage before alighting upon her bag, and did not offer a glance or apology as she deplaned.