Home Again, Home Again

For those of you with no children, I'll tell you a secret you probably already know: when you fly, you can take your stroller right up to the gate and just leave it right there at the bottom of the jet-way, and it will be waiting nicely for you at your next destination. This is called "gate checking." On our return flight today, we were on a smaller airplane, so a lot of people's carry-ons didn't fit in the overhead bins and had to be gate-checked.

Usually, it's just me and maybe one other mom waiting for them to bring up our strollers, but this flight, there were about 30 people waiting for bags. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. Probably 15 minutes. I always find it so interesting to watch people in semi-stressful situations. Thirty people standing around in a small space, all cramped after flying for two hours, hungry because it's lunch time, and just staring at each other.

I have a pretty solid No-Complaining ethic, (see earlier post where I discuss how I am not a squeaky wheel) so I held Nora and chatted with the lady next to me. But, other people... I'm amazed at the lengths they go to make themselves upset and miserable.

We were only there for 15 minutes, and by the end I thought these people were going to riot, led by a grumpy old man and a middle-aged man who kept complaining how cold he was (when we just came from the bay area and it's at least 20 degrees warmer here... like the temperature in the jet-way is the airline's fault as well). "I CANNOT believe they are making us wait for our bags! You would THINK that they would know how to do this and that they would have the STAFF for this sort of thing!" "It's ridiculous that I had to gate-check my bag. I've NEVER had to check that bag. EVER!" "The reason I DIDN'T check my bag was because it had fragile things in it. And now, they're probably BROKEN!" "I'm NEVER flying this airline ever again!"

Does that really make people feel better? The staff who is responsible for this problem are most likely underneath the plane, rummaging around for our bags, and they can't hear you.

So, chill out.