Airport annoyances

[Sits]

I will be in Singapore airport for the next two hours or more and have already been here for two. I really don't want to hear any more muzak. But what I REALLY don't want to hear any more is the bloke opposite me clearing his fucking throat again. Oh he just did. You can see why people are driven to kill.

Oh, now the guy behind me is expounding on his philosophies on life and work to his travelling colleague.

Oh Christ, the new track playing features what sounds like a hideous amalgam of Mariah Carey and Celine Dion on hard hallucinogens.

The guy behind me just said "the world's changed - you have to change with it."

The guy in front just cleared his fucking throat. Five fucking times.

[caja-dglh]

Airport annoyances

You really need someone next to you to start eating an apple. Sounds like you are in just the mood for that to be the most annoying thing on the planet.

[Guy Profumo]

Airport annoyances

Sits wrote: I will be in Singapore airport for the next two hours or more and have already been here for two. I really don't want to hear any more muzak. But what I REALLY don't want to hear any more is the bloke opposite me clearing his fucking throat again. Oh he just did. You can see why people are driven to kill.

Oh, now the guy behind me is expounding on his philosophies on life and work to his travelling colleague.

Oh Christ, the new track playing features what sounds like a hideous amalgam of Mariah Carey and Celine Dion on hard hallucinogens.

The guy behind me just said "the world's changed - you have to change with it."

The guy in front just cleared his fucking throat. Five fucking times.

But surely you can use the toilet for free?

[ursus arctos]

Airport annoyances

This is why I never travel alone without headphones

[treibeis]

Airport annoyances

caja-dglh wrote: You really need someone next to you to start eating an apple. Sounds like you are in just the mood for that to be the most annoying thing on the planet.

Why do so many people get uptight about other people eating apples? I'd rather listen to that than to someone, say, audibly gulping down a hot drink (for some reason, other people gulping down cold drinks don't annoy me as much).

Having said that, if somebody ate a raw carrot within my earshot, I'd have to turn myself in at the nearest police station, lest I do something I might regret later on.

[Sits]

Airport annoyances

I've relocated to the Internet area, after a detour via the gents (Guy was prescient there). There's a guy here on a conference call which for some reason, he really must do on loudspeaker despite being on his own here.

Somebody else is doing regular walkabouts and has a shoe which makes a squeak/sqelch sound, loudly.

Still, should be boarding in about half an hour.

[Sits]

Airport annoyances

It's a Skype call. I should walk past, lean in and say "we need to go for the low-hanging fruit"or some such. I won't, obviously.

[Fussbudget]

Airport annoyances

I don't mind people eating apples, but I hate people eating oranges/clementines/mandarines as I absolutely can't stand the smell of them, and the people eating them are usually completely oblivious to how strong that smell is.

[Sits]

Airport annoyances

Ooh - someone's started humming to themselves close by now.

I suppose really I should travel exclusively on my own executive jet.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Airport annoyances

Those e-passport machine thingies border control have here cause, if anything, more delays than they solve. No-one ever seems to get the machine to work. Certainly never the people in the queue in front of me.

[ursus arctos]

Airport annoyances

Fussbudget, remind me to change the handsoap in the guest bathroom when you come to visit.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Airport annoyances

A really good thing to do is find someone to talk to.

"Oh I see you're reading [name of book here] how do you like it?

"Your son/daughter/dog's cute what's his/her name?"

" Damn, another delay. Are you on flight [name of flight] too?"

If you're having a conversation with someone the irritants vanish like magic. No one talks to strangers anymore it's a massive human deficit.

[WOM]

Airport annoyances

I generally find an unruly baby/toddler nearby and distract myself by distracting them. It pisses my wife off, but generally the parent is all for it.

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

"Oh, that's a terrible noise."

AHHH????

"Please, you must stop that."

AH?

"No. I insist. No shouting. Read a book."

ah?

Then I do the look away/look back quickly thing until they start laughing.

[matt j]

Airport annoyances

And now I'll have to avoid Amor and WOM in airports.

[WOM]

Airport annoyances

Oh, I won't say a word to you. But if you've unruly progeny around...

[hobbes]

Airport annoyances

A really good thing to do is find someone to talk to

A really really really really really really REALLY bad thing to do is find someone to talk to /fixed

[Amor de Cosmos]

Airport annoyances

hobbes wrote:

A really good thing to do is find someone to talk to

A really really really really really really REALLY bad thing to do is find someone to talk to /fixed

It's not. Really.

I've traveled the length and breadth of this continent, and it would've been boring as shit without the scores of casual meetings and conversations on the way. A seventeen year-old kid on his way to Alberta to buy a horse he'd ride through the Rockies to Colorado. A group of Mexican labourers who, once they realised I was English — "Ah! Inglese. Bobbee Charlton, Bobbee Moore!" — introduced me to the pleasures of pulque. A woman and her six-year-old-son on the Greyhound out of LA, who was running "somewhere, anywhere, because he's hit me for the last time."

Maybe because I spent my mid-teens hitch-hiking, when the price of a ride was talking to the driver, I learned early to listen, and talk, to strangers. I almost weep these days when I see people in public places not being, well... public. We're social beings, and relishing the chance encounter is big part of that.

[WOM]

Airport annoyances

By and large, I agree with you. But it seems that most people want to talk far more than they want to listen (which gets dull real quick) and you come across far more chatty, small-minded conservatives than you do chatty, broad-minded liberals.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Airport annoyances

Sometimes. If that's the case in an airport/station you can easily find an excuse to leave. In a car on a three hour drive it's harder. Usually I'd try to shift the conversation on to safer ground: kids, hobbies, holidays etc.

[linus]

Airport annoyances

AdC rescues the thread from the realm of mundane/first world problems...

Fussbudget wrote: I don't mind people eating apples, but I hate people eating oranges/clementines/mandarines as I absolutely can't stand the smell of them, and the people eating them are usually completely oblivious to how strong that smell is.

It's a welcome odor on a plane though, especially if you're sitting close to the restrooms, and it's a natural, chemical-free odor.

One thing I like on Air France flights is the odor of aniseed from the pastis.

[Ginger Yellow]

Airport annoyances

What Matt and Hobbes said. The very last thing I want to do in an airport is be engaged in small talk with a stranger. Leave me alone! I have half a dozen devices and headphones for a reason.

[WOM]

Airport annoyances

I had a lovely conversation with a (really quite) old woman in the seat next to me from Florida to Detroit. As we flew over Grosse Ile she waved out the window and said "Hellooooo mom".

Of course, I said "Oh, is your mother buried on the island?"

"Buried? No, she still lives there. She's 98."

[Fussbudget]

Airport annoyances

linus wrote: It's a welcome odor on a plane though, especially if you're sitting close to the restrooms, and it's a natural, chemical-free odor.

I would genuinely rather have the smell from the toilets.

[linus]

Airport annoyances

I guess it's a natural, chemical-free odor too.

[G-Man]

Airport annoyances

Amor de Cosmos wrote:

A really good thing to do is find someone to talk to

A really really really really really really REALLY bad thing to do is find someone to talk to /fixed

It's not. Really.

I've traveled the length and breadth of this continent, and it would've been boring as shit without the scores of casual meetings and conversations on the way. A seventeen year-old kid on his way to Alberta to buy a horse he'd ride through the Rockies to Colorado. A group of Mexican labourers who, once they realised I was English — "Ah! Inglese. Bobbee Charlton, Bobbee Moore!" — introduced me to the pleasures of pulque. A woman and her six-year-old-son on the Greyhound out of LA, who was running "somewhere, anywhere, because he's hit me for the last time."

Maybe because I spent my mid-teens hitch-hiking, when the price of a ride was talking to the driver, I learned early to listen, and talk, to strangers. I almost weep these days when I see people in public places not being, well... public. We're social beings, and relishing the chance encounter is big part of that.

You are a magnet for interesting people. I tend to get very friendly but very unremarkable housewives from upstate New York who are happy to tell me at length about their two boring sons and suburban daughter. Or the racist white South African who by dint of my complexion thinks I must be a racist too and talks rather too loudly about how the country is going to the dogs. Or the person who finds this whole chatting-to-strangers thing as awkward as I do, but, like me, can't find a way of saying, "OK, I'll leave you in peace now".