Jimmy rolled his eyes before countering with a request.
“Did you bring headphones?”
“Sorry,” I offered with sincerity.
My husband got up from his seat and made his way to the back of the plane for a few minutes of peace and quiet via a bathroom break.
“Just politely ask him to stop,” I whispered from across the aisle when he returned.
I was sitting pretty, as in an aisle seat across from my beloved, who’d snagged his own aisle seat, too, on a recent Southwest flight (for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, it’s open seating on all Southwest flights) to Denver from Chicago. Only the middle seat next to me was empty. Jimmy hadn’t fared as well.
And to add insult to injury, the guy in the middle seat added an entirely new dimension to annoying for the duration of the flight.
CC looked at me and whispered, “Whaaaaaat the . . . ?”
The alcohol she’d been throwing down for the last 900 miles had obviously done due diligence on the parts of her brain controlling speech, judgment, and impulsive behavior.
I shrugged my shoulders and made an elaborate show of going back to reading my book in a last ditch effort to secure some peace and quiet of my own. CC simply turned to the guy on her right and never missed a beat, or should I say syllable.
Note to self – remember the headphones!
According to an online poll on the topic by Expedia, most passengers simply let the annoying behavior of fellow passengers slide. Of the 1,091 polled last November, 10% said they’d secretly recorded the offender on their phone (did that!); 3% said they’d shamed them on social media (doing that as we speak!); 21% admitted they’d asked the person to stop (Jimmy did try the direct approach).
“Between the cabin noise and his mumbling as he read through the entire Book of Timothy, I could only catch a word here and there; Christ Jesus, sinners, faith, mercy.”
“You asked him to stop?” I queried, incredulous the annoying behavior had gone on for so long.
“When I asked,” Jimmy replied,” he came back with, ‘reading aloud helps me remember the bible verses.’ "
Holy hypocrisy!
“He also said nobody has ever complained before.”
Heaven help us!
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