Nervous Nelly

Published by: Ken Meyer 8 years, 9 months ago

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Flying with nervous Nelly. So my seat mate today in first class is a mother of four, all of whom are on the flight along with her husband. I noticed them before boarding as the husband was trying to work out boarding and seating arrangements for his crew, all apparently in their teens. I will guess this is their first flight as a family and not too experienced. To his credit, the husband gave hisfirst class upgrade to his wife, Nervous Nelly. I am in the aisle seat, trying to settle in before flight. She boarded with first class but then had to stand right in front of me to be sure her family boarded.

We are in the bulkhead seats. Finally they got boarded and she sits down but immediately turns to look toward the back....and stays in that position until takeoff. She orders a coke and is very fidgety, leaving the coke in an open glass...right next to my freshly pressed seersucker pants, seemingly oblivious to the laws of gravity and physics when a jet throttles up and shoots down the runway until the nose lifts and the further impact of gravity on a relatively innocuous open glass of liquid. I have been here before. Not wanting to be rude by suggesting she perhaps at least hold on to her drink during takeoff, I mind my own business, fully planning on grabbing the drink myself when we tilt upwards. But alas, the cabin attendant (we used to call them steward(ess)s) notice the potential problem and jumped to her feet to grab the drink while accelerating down the runway. Crisis averted. We make it to the air and she is still nervous and sitting rather twistedly (is that a word?), looking back at her family.

My point, you might ask? While it was nice for dad to give up his first class seat for mom, I think we all would have a more pleasant flying experience if she had sat with her family. PS: she finally settled down and actually fell asleep. She snores. My earphones are in. All is good. ;)

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