Jerks On A Plane

Lucky me, I have the window seat on the way to Seattle. The woman next to me sat down and immediately made comments about the strange noises the plane was making, how it sounded like a flat tire and then looked out the window to notice that the wing flap looked disconnected from the plane. Shut your mouth, lady, nobody needs to hear that.

However, in a new effort I am making, I was nice. I smiled and nodded politely. After going to an Italian food festival over the weekend and seeing America's obesity problem in line at the fried dough tent, I realized I need to be nicer about such things. I cracked a few jokes and invented a game. The game had simple rules, I come up with a population description and you tell me how many people at the festival fit the description. We started off easy: Number of people currently collecting unemployment, number of people who use the word "yous" - and then it got trickier with number of people who sue frivolously for money and those in consultation for or having gastric bypass surgery. You really had to look closely to gauge. As I proceeded to look closely at their sad fat faces smeared with tomato sauce, I realized I've become much too mean.

People-watching is my favorite sport and I've always prided myself on being so judgmental, but now that I am really old, I am feeling guilty. Where did this come from? I don't know, and I am not sure that there are volunteer opportunities for helping with America's basic ignorance, but I do wish there was something I could do. People have stopped taking care of themselves, making good personal life decisions, and caring about their country and I should stop laughing at it. It's going to be hard, because they've chosen to do this to themselves and their environment and it's not easy to sympathize with that. The two people that I told I was going to do this don't believe I'm going to stick with it. It's been 24 hours. I was nice all day yesterday and I woke up at 4a.m. for a flight and stayed nice. I'm going to play it like a recovering alcoholic deciding not to hang out at bars after they quit drinking. I won't be taking any trips to the mid-west, malls and food festivals are clearly off my list, and I should probably avoid corporate chain restaurants and the State of New Jersey. It's going to be hard, but I am going to be a better person. At least until I think of something better to do with my time.