Me and My Beats
Merry Christmas! As you should know by this point, my dad grew up on a farm in Iowa and we go there for Christmas every year in order to see the fam and also, I suspect, in an attempt by my father to “ground” me a bit. Too late, pops. My head is in the clouds and there’s not much you can do about it at this point. Christmas in Iowa gives me the opportunity to explore my inner WASP, the recessive half of my cultural background that you all know I wish were more dominant. (Just didn’t work out in the Punnett square. Waspiness and wrinkled peas just don’t make the cut.) With this opportunity, I bet you think I love coming here every year, but Iowa WASPs are far different from Connecticut WASPs. Instead of pearls, Lilly Pulizter and eating disorders, it’s church, high fat content food, and JC Penny. But, I’ve told you about Xmas in Iowa before and I’d hate to sound like a broken record, so for a recap see December 23, 2010.
My parents were never the kind of parents who traveled for their kids. Yeah, we went to Disney World once, but other than that my sister and I have been traveling to locations far above our sophistication level for years now, to locations that were appealing to them. (I still don’t think I’m ready to embrace the cultural differences of Spain, which is why I am choosing to spend my four months there with a bunch of Americans). So, I’ve come very accustomed to flying far and wide. However, I still do not understand what other people are thinking on these flights, especially around the holidays (it seems like people get ruder). People literally have no regard for common courtesy or general in-flight etiquette. This time seemed to be particularly bad. You think that New Yorkers traveling to the mid-West would be a bit nicer, but trust me that is not the case. Everyone is still a bunch of ass holes.
So our flight was at, like, 7:30 in the morning because God forbid we miss any possible moment we can spend in Iowa. If we can catch lunch day one, we’ve accomplished our goal. So its 7:30 am, obviously everyone is tryina go to sleep on this flight. I popped on my brand new Hannukah Beats (sorry that I’m about a year behind but I still wanted the bald hipster man next to me to think we were on the same level of musical relevance due to the fact that we both had Beats, even though he had the big ones and mine are the small ones…I’m still just a WJG who listens to Justin Bieber and Avicii) and put on my “chill” playlist ready to pass out. And pass out I did. Yet, about an hour and half in to the flight, I was rudely awaken by the jack ass in front of me who put his seat back not a little bit, but all the fucking way. Now I know I’m just a 5’6” girl, but this guy abused his chair-lean-back privileges so much that I felt like Lamar Odom in the back of a smart car. Not exaggerating. But, what I was really pissed about was that this guy chose to do this three quarters of the way into the flight. Like if you were fine up until this point, why do you now, at the time you should actually be waking up, decide it’s necessary to ruin my flight? I had grown accustomed to a comfortable experience so to take it away from me at that point was just rude. (Kind of similar to the message I am constantly ingraining in my parents’ heads, that they will in fact be supporting me financially until I am able to provide myself with the same Bloomingdales-clad lifestyle they have given me for 20 years. Can’t just drop down now.)
Because I looked so cool with my Beats, I could tell the bitchy flight attendant wanted nothing more than to bust my John Mayer/Adele/Coldplay “chill” playlist mock-concert experience. Sorry you need to deal with cranky people who want constant coffee refills (aka my dad), but you were the one who decided to become a stewardess, not me. This ain’t the Pan Am era anymore, lady. I’m the boss now. So don’t tell me to turn my music off 45 minutes before we land, because I know and you know that me listening to my iPod has zero affect on the pilot’s ability to land this plane. If Sully did it in the Hudson, this dude can do it on an open runway with clear skies. It’s just a power play these stewardess’ use in order to gain back what little respect they think their profession owns them. I’ll give it to them. But everyone and their grandmothers, who don’t even know what an iPod is, know that you don’t need to turn your iPod off 45 minutes before landing. And then she literally watches me turn it off. Like, be a bigger bitch I dare you. Prior to the Beats I used to be able to hide my headphones and continue to listen, but these Dr. Dre money-makers are so not discrete.
Like I mentioned, this flight was at 7:30 in the morning so that means my eager beaver family had to leave our house at 5:45 am. So I looked like a particularly huge piece of shit. Every time I fly, I say “This time I am going to look nice for the plane, do my hair, doll up a little bit” because you never know who you are going to meet, but I can assure you that never happens. I always, and I mean always, look like I got hit by an 18-wheeler when I travel. (Same thing happens to me at the beginning of every semester when I tell myself I’m going to look good for class this year. Never happens. Thank God I’m a comm. major. NO BOYS!) I never really think too much about the fact that I am going to look like shit for the plane, because I figure everyone is pretty much on my page. Who looks good when they travel? If you’re not wearing oversized Bat Mitzvah sweats, you’re overdressed (which is why I think if I put on leggings I will look “nice”), but it doesn’t seem like everyone else thinks like that. Maybe it’s just La Guardia and JFK, but every single person in that airport looks like they walked out of an Urban Outfitters catalogue. Like, Worlds Trendiest Traveler award goes to everyone in La Guardia except me. Jeans at 7:30 in the morning? Who does that?! And then all these trendy couples are traveling together to like tropical locations throughout the Caribbean and I just wanna slap them. Rub it in more. You dress trendy for the plane and you are going on a honeymoon type vacation with your trendy, plaid shirt-wearing boyfriend. Slore.
Although I am such an experienced traveler, I never fail to complain whilst doing it. I never get to sit next to a random hottie and spark up a conversation that leads to an exchange of numbers and a life long romance (I’d even take a life long friendship.) I never run into celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, someone who I have been expecting to see for years now considering the fact that he GREW UP in Iowa. (You just got divorced, buddy. Would it kill you to come home for the holidays?) And I’ll never understand why rental cars are never, ever cars you have ever seen in mainstream America. Can’t we ever just get a plain old Altima or something? I guess it’s just going to be me and my Beats against the rest of the plane. My next feat: NYE… to go into the city or not to go into the city? That’s every Long Islanders question. Like WTF?!
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