Travel sucks. Like the actual physical act of “traveling” sucks big time. And overnight travel is even worse. Whether by plane, train or automobile, everyone has their own war story and everyone will tell you that what happened to them was the worst thing to ever happen in the history of travel.
“Can you believe I had a 22-hour flight with a 12-hour layover in Malaysia and the airlines sold my 2.5 inches of extra legroom to an old war veteran?”
“Yeah, well, my flight was delayed by 5 hours because it was snowing and they had to ‘protect the safety of the passengers.’ Then, we sat on the tarmac for another 2 hours, I missed my connection and had to watch The Bachelor on DVR instead of live. Unacceptable.”
“Well, on my flight I sat in the middle seat next to two screaming babies, a sniffling man in a SARS mask, an elderly woman and her ‘therapy cat’ and a crying couple who decided takeoff of a 10-hour flight was a good time to end their 15-year marriage.”
This guy on the plane just broke up w his girlfriend and she’s SOBBING pic.twitter.com/IW9QVYxXdB
— Kelly Keegs (@kellykeegs) August 23, 2015
“Yeah… well, well, well… a guy died on my flight…”
Traveling martyrs
It’s like a traveling shit slinging contest. We’ve all had them. Missed connections, long layovers. We’ve all had them and they all suck. But each one of these stories shares something in common. A unifying thread that may just bring together the entire travel community once and for all.
No one cares.
That’s right, NO ONE CARES.
Your seating situation? The delays? The more important thing you had to do on the other side of this travel? People might say they care, but they don’t.
Not the poor flight attendant who is probably just as sad to be missing The Bachelor as you are. Not the coworker you trapped at the water cooler the next day to brag about your incredible trip to Iceland, but then complained about only getting two bags of peanuts. And certainly not your friends. Your friends definitely don’t care.
Creatures of the night
With all of that being said, there’s something about long travel days that brings out the best / worst / weirdest in people. When the sun sets and the food cart has been tucked away on an overnight flight it’s like you’ve stepped into an alternate universe. A cesspool of human quirkiness (I don’t think cesspool is the right word here, but I’m going to use it anyways).
I recently had a travel day where we rode a bus from Marrakech to Casablanca, flew from Casablanca to Rome and then flew from Rome to Buenos Aires. All in all, it probably took about 30 hours door-to-door. In that time I watched three of the most questionable romantic comedies ever made and, while I didn’t sit first-class, I did have a front row seat to some of the greatest displays of human behavior in the history of human.
Entering the overnight travel alternate universe
You first get on the plane for an overnight flight excited and in good spirits. “Oh, where are you sitting?! Where are you sitting??” Politely chatting with your neighbor about what you’re doing and where it is that you’re going. Convincing yourself that you’re going to use the next 14 hours to “be productive.” Probably writing that book you’ve been meaning to start or curing that cancer you’ve been meaning to cure.
Someone will panic because the overhead luggage near their seat is full, but otherwise everyone remains in good spirits. Someone (not me, of course) will try their luck flirting with the cute, Argentinean flight attendant (remember Traveling While Single?). She’ll awkwardly smile and now you can all but rule out getting seconds of the in-flight meal.
Feeding the beasts
Everyone is happy and doing well, but the meals start to come out and the flight night chaos starts to set in. Surely, someone’s dietary restrictions have been forgotten. The chicken, mashed potatoes and bread that the budget European airline is serving don’t exactly jive with the diet of a gluten-free vegetarian. “It’s fine” this person will claim as they eat a single piece of cheese and gnaw on their finger for the next 14 hours.
This meal suited me quite nicely, but it seems like an important part of being a seasoned traveler is complaining about the food. Yet, despite the complaints, there’s a strange middle-school cafeteria sense of community that overtakes the plane. People swapping 6 pieces of lettuce for a packet of jam. Complete strangers eating off each other’s plates like they’ve been married for 25 years. It’s beautiful, really.
Flight night
The food gets put away and there’s no delaying the inevitable anymore. The fun is over and there’s still 10+ hours of restless sleep, but not-really-sleep, between you and where you’re going. This is where the entertainment really starts to set in.
The lights go down and the weirdo show starts.
Maybe it’s the 45-year-old man brushing his teeth and popping in his adult retainer in the middle of the aisle.
It could be the 60-something-year-old woman with her limited lung capacity trying to blow up her inflatable neck pillow.
Or maybe it’s the perfectly choreographed ballet between man and woman as he gets up to pee 15 times after one too many beers, while she expertly pivots in her chair to let him through without so much as removing her eye mask.
Like I said before, people LOVE to be the travel martyr after long days like this. And I get it. Sure, you probably didn’t sleep very much and maybe the guy in the seat next to you threw up in his lap, but did you get a meal and movies and more entertainment than you’d get anywhere else? Did you make it to where you were going?
That’s what I thought.