a hshieh blog.

My flight to Boston was quite unpleasant. I blame the constant pestering of Male Flight Attendant.

I flew out of Dayton at close to 5h30, and having had very little sleep the night before, I tried to catch some shuteye. Perhaps flight attendants from AirTran simply do not like me–I’ve been attacked by dropped luggage mid-flight, scoffed at, and aide button disabled (the yellow-cup-oxygen-bag dropped out in front of me, I pressed the help button, the person came, turned my light off, and then went down two seats ahead of me to fetch someone an extra Vitamin Water).

Today’s non-stop flight to Atlanta was all but non-stop. I closed my eyes and leaned my seat back. So did the rest of the plane-folk; it was early. Male Flight Attendant walked up to me, shook my shoulder, and asked me to pull my seat back up. Thinking I made a mistake, I pulled my seat up and sat uncomfortably for a few minutes.

But wait. Strange Person Next to Me has his seat back and so does Window Girl. Why can’t I put my seat back?

Believing that I had simply sat back too early after take-off, I pushed my seat back again and tried to sleep. Male Flight Attendant promptly came up the aisle again (I think he had been watching me): “Sir, can you please pull your seat back up?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand, everyone else has their seat back.”

“Yes they do sir.”

Male Flight Attendant then turned around and walked back to be a social butterfly with Female Flight Attendant nr. 1 and Female Flight Attendant nr. 2 (a.k.a Tara, whose name I learned because Elderly Couple sitting next to me told her that her name was the same as their granddaughter’s). Male Flight Attendant went on and on about how jealous he was of his female counterparts’ stewardess outfits. “You definitely can’t pull it off, evil Male Flight Attendant”, I thought to myself.

I tried to sleep again. A few minutes later, I heard Male Flight Attendant’s annoying voice again: “Sir, would you please move your leg.” My legs were well stowed under the seat in front of me. Regardless and getting slightly annoyed, I shifted my legs even closer to Strange Guy Next to Me.

“A bit more, sir.”

This time I just shot a dirty, angry Asian look back at Male Flight Attendant. My naturally smaller eyes gave my glare greater intensity than usual. Male Flight Attendant finally proceeded to move the drink cart down the aisle. Meanwhile, I didn’t get a beverage, while the two people next to me already got theirs.

“Be nice Eric~”, said Tara, in a high more-nasal-than-Male-Flight-Attendant’s voice. I shot Tara a look of appreciation, which she seemed to be a look of me trying to seduce her. She asked me what I wanted to drink, I asked for a Fruit Punch Vitamin Water.

“Oooohh Tara, you’re such a ditzy flirt!~” said Male Flight Attendant.

“Whyyy~ He’s cute~”, she replied.

Thanks, Tara. If I weren’t annoyed and tired, I might be in the mood to be more than civil to you.

I tried to sleep again. Fifteen minutes later, my Vitamin Water came. Or rather, it smacked me on the head.

“Whoops, butter fingers!” said Male Flight Attendant.

I picked up my Vitamin Water bottle, and took my cup from his hands.

“DUDE! What the ****!? Leave the guy alone!” said Obviously from San Francisco Guy. Strange Guy Next to Me promptly blogged the occurence into his mobile. Apparently it was his first flight. Apparently he didn’t realise that his phone should probably be off, since his mobile ran out of battery halfway through the flight, and I offered him my Macbook Pro USB port for his to charge.

I gave a nod of thanks to Obviously from San Francisco Guy. How did I know he was from San Francisco? The giveaways:

1. He had an iPhone.
2. He thought he was from the best city in the world.
3. He was extraordinarily well dressed, yet extremely casually dressed at the same time.
4. He also had a Mac.
5. He had an I <3 SF tag on his bookbag.

Male Flight Attendant gave a seductive look to Obviously from San Francisco Guy and moved on. I finished my beverage and went to sleep. Tara took over after Obviously from San Francisco Guy defended me, but ten minutes later, the flight was getting to land. Strange Guy Next to Me, poked me, sat up and gave me a wild look. I opened my eyes and replied with the did-you-really-just-poke-me-in-a-non-Facebook-way look.

“WHOA!! LOOK AT THIS LANDING!” He started cheering for the plane landing. Everyone stared at him. When the plane was taxi-ing, Elderly Man from Elderly Couple looked at me and said. “Konnichiwa.” It was early, so I didn’t bothering mentioning that I was Chinese, and decided to be Japanese for the moment. I gave the full Japanese introduction and unfortunately, he seemed really impressed.

“Where in Japan are you from?”

“Actually, I’m Chinese.”

“Oh, are you from Beijing?”

“No, unfortunately not, sir.”

“Are you watching the Olympics?”

“Yessir.”

“Can you watch it in Chinese?”

“Yessir.”

“But you speak Japanese. Is Chinese television in Japanese.”

“No sir, I speak Chinese and Japanese.”

“Oh, do they have two official languages?”

The aisle started to move, so I responded quickly with a “no” and went on my way. Exiting the plane, Tara gave me a strange laughing look, and Male Flight Attendant gave me a malicious smile. I got off the plane and tried to find a McDonalds. I couldn’t find one.

AirTran, you are epic fail.

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