It's Called MANNERS.

People always say “Kimberly, you should write a book.” And I’ve finally decided the perfect book for me to write:

An Etiquette Book.

Not one of those ridiculous etiquette books that tell you which fork to use and how to phrase the perfect thank-you note, but a useful one that tells you how to deal with real situations in the modern world.

And this might be the first chapter:

If you are boarding a plane this size (imagine an elevator with wings):

AND you’re obnoxious enough to bring a big, smelly sandwich on board with you (which, as was noted earlier, is like pulling out a sandwich while trapped on an elevator)…

AND there are 3 open seats…

AND two of those seats are single seats where you can sit and munch your smelly sandwich in solitude…

DO NOT plop your smelly sandwich-eating self down next to a woman who is so caught up in imagining the plane plummeting to earth in a fiery explosion that she shouldn’t have to also be assaulted by sandwich stench.

It is interesting to note that this will be an etiquette book not a grammar book yet I still feel compelled to point out that I deliberately did not put a comma between “smelly” and “sandwich-eating” thus indicating that smelly is modifying sandwich, not self. I am not suggesting that SHE was smelly, just her SANDWICH…but I digress…

More to the point, if for some obnoxious and deeply personal reason, you feel compelled to bring your sandwich into the airborne elevator AND sit next to an already horrified woman, please remember that it is the worst form of bad manners to, as you are gnoshing away on your sandwich, brush the crumbs off YOUR lap and ONTO the lap of the already horrified woman. Particularly if you follow this up with nothing more than an “oops.”

The problem with this is, obviously, the horrified woman will then be forced to stop praying that the plane will not plummet to earth in a fiery explosion and spend the rest of the trip imagining ways to “accidentally” trip you as you deplane.

Which, considering it’s entirely possible that the horrified woman’s prayers are the only thing keeping the plane in the air, is bad for everyone involved.

Now that I think about it, it’s kind of hard to decide if I should call this book “Modern Etiquette” or “People Who Should Be Punched In The Face.”

Fear of Flying

Here’s the thing:  I don't fly well.

And when I say I don't fly well, I don't mean that I run around the yard, flapping my arms like some deranged bird, unsuccessfully attempting to fly.

I mean that when I board a giant metal tube and prepare to be hurtled across the skies at hundreds of miles per hour, I get a little nervous.

And when I say I get a little nervous, I mean I’m absolutely convinced that, at any moment, the engine will malfunction and we’ll all plummet to our fiery deaths.

A conviction I feel compelled to share with anyone sitting around me.

Just doing my part to spread sunshine and joy wherever I go.

In any case, this is bad enough when I’m on a regular 747. But now when I travel to Illinois to visit my family, I frequently fly the last part of the trip on this little 10 seater plane:

It’s really convenient but it’s also HORRIFYING.

One of the things that always freaks me out is the fact that, even though regular sized airplanes have lessened the restrictions on leaving electronics on while you’re in the air, the little planes haven’t. 

Apparently the plane’s computer system is so sensitive that the tiniest signal from my phone could rip through the circuitry like a virus and, of course, send us plummeting to our fiery deaths.

So, when I traveled to Illinois last weekend and this young guy (about 22 or so) kept sneaking his phone out to play with it, I almost snatched it from him and beat him to death with it.

“Sir,” the pilot said. “Didn’t you hear the preflight instructions? You have to turn your phone off.”

“Ok,” the guy said, put it in his pocket until the pilot turned back around, then he got it out again.

It was like I was back in a high school classroom…and I began having horribly violent fantasies about hitting him with the phone, pouring water over the phone and electrocuting the moron, turning the phone into the world’s largest suppository and shoving it right up the guy’s…well, you probably get the picture.

Luckily, the pilot confiscated the moron’s phone before I could do any lasting damage.

And, to show you just how clueless the moron was, after the pilot took his phone, the moron looked at me and whined “Geez, that guy’s on a power trip!”

At which point I put my hand in his face like a traffic cop and said “WRONG AUDIENCE DUDE!”

When he started to protest, I said “If I was the pilot, I would have taken it ten minutes ago and I would have SMASHED it." I said.

Then I smiled like I was kidding.

But I wasn’t kidding.

And I’m pretty sure the moron knew I wasn’t kidding because he didn’t talk to me the rest of the flight.

Then, if that drama wasn't bad enough, when I was leaving Illinois and getting ready to board the little plane again, the guy in front of me in the security line got dragged out of the building in handcuffs.

I may never fly again.