Pan Am: so yeah
Hand luggage. You're going to have to ditch the plasma TV at home if you want to spend the weekend in Mozambique. It's not going to fit you well in the suitcase measuring cage no matter how many hits you give it. The meter, in addition, is shrinking like a microchip as it becomes fashionable in more and more companies. The record in Spain is held by Wizz Air, which allows you, with the ticket, half of half a carry-on bag. In view of this unstoppable jibarization I have already tried to put a clean change of clothes in the bag. Does not fit.
Do not crush the desserts to the Argentine companion of a transoceanic flight. Then you're going to have to listen to him for the whole trip.
Emergency exit. It is an injustice that the emergency exits are only given to those who know English. Probably it is a regulation drawn up by some lobby of resentful haughty polyglots. You, who have never left your town, have as much right to stretch your legs as anyone else. Stand strong next to the window and hold on to the seat with the Numantine or wolfish fierceness of a minister or mayor of Madrid while you alternately answer “lles”, “ol rait” and “beri güel” to everything they tell you.
Food. Apparently, there is a scientific law not yet formulated that turns anything you eat into a formless monstrosity of plastic's cousin chemical qualities as soon as you raise it a few meters in the air. This can be demonstrated by randomly trying any aerial menu.
window or hallway. Asking for the window to not look up from 50 Shades of Gray or to disembowel a co-worker while turning your back on the Himalayan peaks never gets old.
Cut the low cost. It's in fashion. Join the party and say out loud that you would pay eight hundred euros more per flight as long as you are not forced to measure your suitcase at home or pay an extra 15 euros to check in. That's as far as we could go.
Sale on board. It doesn't bother me that certain low cost companies try to sell me a pilot puppy fifteen times per flight. What worries me is that one of these days they will end up putting him in the driver's seat.
The accidental partner. "The accidental tourist" recommended reading a book as a preventive measure against the pesta companion. But if he touches you, not even with those, he touched you. It is as unpredictable and unforgiving as a tax inspection of a poor person. Hit with the book.
Go to the bathroom. If the guy sitting in the hall square is so lazy that he can't get up to let you go to the bathroom and just shyly shrugs his legs, congratulations. In reality, he is issuing you a permit to step on, kick, stomp, crush and rub your ass in his face, all of which, in this case, are not considered infidelity to your partner in almost any religion. Feel like the Incredible Hulk for a day, they are asking you.
Leisure equipment. If you don't want to compare and cry, don't play Pan Am episodes during the flight.
Choose a seat. The seats of each aircraft model of each company are analyzed in detail on websites such as Seatguru, where, at a glance, you can find out in which seats you will have to shrink your legs the most or where there is more noise. The seating plan of these websites, with their color code, looks like that of a minefield, and for a reason.
Turbulence. That classic cinephile declaring your secret love to your brother-in-law because you think you're going to crash and then it turns out you're not. It happens so much that I carry the declaration on a piece of paper and 15 languages to declare myself to whoever touches me next to me. In case it slips.
Kids. Little angels that climb, jump, scream, cry, sing and kick. They messed with Melendi for much less and the poor guy didn't even sing. Kids are the reason airline passengers buy metalworker headsets. Take earplugs, take Valium, take a tissue for tears. Children within a seat distance from you they are a lottery that plays every ten or twelve flights.
Sex. In the bathroom, it's fine and you enter a club (Mile High Club). In the seat, it is worse seen. In the hallway, it's vice.
At. Unlike fried chicken, getting your wings touched on a plane is bad. 10 hours of counting the screws to a wing through the window can be slightly monotonous.
Accidents. The seats where it is easiest to survive a plane crash are usually located in the aisles in the center of the cabin. The last time I flew I didn't see anyone sticking up for those seats. This, together with how clean everyone leaves the dishes on the menu on board, confirms me in the idea that we believe we are immortal.
Panics. If you stop thinking about what will happen when the plane crashes, the flights will become much shorter. I know this isn't going to help you much, but the undeniable truth is that the plane is going to look the same if you imagine it in chilling detail than if you don't.