Mr. 12A

On my flight from OKC to ATL I was sitting in the Exit row seat, 12B (tip – if you sit in an Exit row during the winter time and you’re in a window seat, you will freeze your fanny off!! If you’re cold natured like me take the aisle seat – trust me…..) anyhoo….I sat next to this guy who clearly doesn’t travel very often but was trying to pretend he was some important businessman. So he has his “clipboard” with a bunch of landscaping sketches (which I have to admit were pretty nice) but what was so annoying is he wanted to make sure that EVERYONE saw them, so he made sure at every chance to flash them around. So of course the stewardess had to point out how nice they were and he responded that he’s in the landscaping business.

As you frequent travelers know, when sitting in an Exit row you are required to give a verbal “YES” when asked if you are willing and able to assist incase of an emergency (how many of you can recite the “schpiel”? ha) So 3 out of 4 of us say “YES” and Mr. 12A just stares at her. So the stewardess says, “Can you hear me sir?” lol So I look at him to tell him he has to say YES aloud so she can move on. So he says YES and we’re on our way……..sigh – amateurs…

I usually just chill during takeoff so I had my head leaned back and eyes closed. He then turned on his light, sigh - BUT he was very nice in asking if the light was going to bother me. I should have said “Yes it would” - LOL But I didn’t…..So he scored a few nice points for that one.

During the entire flight he’s incredibly fidgety – I swear the man had adult ADD. He kept bumping my arm to write down important “businessey” stuff. The man should have won an academy award for his acting skills. He would shuffle through his papers and “take notes”. I have to confess I was trying to sneak peaks to see what was SO important and I chuckled to myself when I saw him looking at price lists on perennials for $2.00 each. (I was then thinking to myself – Call me crazy, but you know most important business folk have laptop computers and not paper and clipboards.) So this continued for a good while until the drink cart approached. He asked for a beer and tried to pay with a $100 bill - SIGH. Now us frequent travelers know that the staff never has change and they encourage exact bills. So he then just “happens” to have a $10….::puke puke::

Sip…Sip….Shuffle……Shuffle…….Fidget…….Fidget……THEN……I can feel him looking over shoulder while I’m reading my OK! Magazine!?! And I mean it’s not like he’s trying to hide it either, he was LEANING into me and looking at the pictures and trying to read my article on Britney?! So after about 15 mins of his head in my lap reading my mag I gave a “glance” which I think scared him – tee hee…so that stopped.

So the stewardess comes down the isle with the trash bag…….he leans over me and spills my ENTIRE Diet Coke down my leg (which was on my tray mind you – so that shows you how much he was violating my space!)……SIGH. So that goes to show you how fast he sucked down his $7 beer, since mine was almost full. I’m not sure if he even apologized, however at this point I’m just like whatever….get me to Atlanta!

Oh! And he also went to the restroom FOUR times…..and his breath smelled of garlic, onions, and dead donkey…..I swear people – think about what you eat when you have to sit in super small quarters for hours with other people or at least pack some breath mints so we don’t have to smell your funky donkey breath……

Anyhoo – Mr. 12A, you don’t have to pretend you are some big business man, just relax, read a magazine (you obviously were interested in mine!), draw up some more sketches, something! – we could care less and take some Ritalin® next time!!