Try not to let traveling woes get you down

Traveling is one of my very favorite hobbies. More like a life-long passion, really. Yet I find myself wondering why, on certain occasions, it has to be so difficult? So tedious, so frustrating, so utterly irritating, that it makes you want to crawl back into bed, hand out some Three Stooges-style abuse or drop your suitcase off at Goodwill and call it good.

On a recent trip to Arizona to cover the Super Bowl for my full-time gig of being a sportswriter, I noticed several annoying aspects of being away from home. I know what you’re thinking: This guy got to spend a week at the Super Bowl, and he’s complaining about life on the road? Well, no, I’m not that out of touch with reality. It’s just that a trip of that magnitude, for that length of time, has a tendency to magnify several flaws in the system, not to mention several issues with humankind — all of which can have you making a fist and gritting your teeth in no time.

I’ve decided to break down a few things that bothered me about the world of travel during my week away. I hope you can relate to most of them, if for no other reason than to make me feel sane again. Or less of a whiner about something I enjoy so much.

• People who immediately jump up to grab their bag out of the overhead compartment when the plane comes to a stop at the gate. Seriously, where do you think you are going when you hear the ding? You’re basically in a rush to wait for another 10-15 minutes before the masses start moving. Do you think someone is eager to swipe that precious carry-on of yours in the time it takes to stand up like a normal person? Jump up, grab your bag like it’s got a collection of porn videos you don’t want anyone to see and then stand there and wait, avoiding eye contact with those in your vicinity. I just don’t get it.

• I’ve been fortunate to have never had an airline lose one of my bags despite a healthy amount of traveling in my life. Not once. But as a kid, my brother and I would squeeze to the front of the carousel so that we could secure our bags in our little paws as soon as those suckers emerged from behind the mud flaps. Not only were we secretly afraid they’d never come out, but we also didn’t want anyone staking claim to them if we had our backs turned or were eating ice cream. Seeing our bag was very important to us. Nowadays, older and at least slightly more mature, I don’t really care where I stand at the carousel. But even though I know my bag is on its way out, there is still that feeling I get when most of my fellow passengers have already departed with their belongings and I have yet to catch a glimpse of mine. Like this is the time, karma revisited, when my luggage is sitting in Fort Collins instead of Fort Lauderdale. Sounds foolish, I know, but you can’t tell me you haven’t had that slightly sickening feeling when the steady flow of bags trickles down to a mere drip and you’re still waiting.

• And by the way, why does everyone have to have a black bag like mine? That doesn’t make it any easier at baggage claim. I swear, 80 percent of the bags that come out of the bowels of a plane are black and medium-sized. Someone needs to do something about this.

• Immediately upon landing, ever notice how one out of every three people jumps on their cell phones and calls somebody? Sometimes they ring the person who is picking them up, sometimes they ring the person who dropped them off, sometimes I think they ring people they don’t even know. And more times than not, they talk twice as loud as they need to. On a quiet plane, with everyone standing together like cattle, bags ready, there is no need to yell into a phone and give details about how you just landed or had pretzels and a Sprite on the way.

• When did hotel maids decide it was OK to knock three times in rapid fashion before walking into your room — and do so at 8 a.m.? Should they really be surprised to find me crawling out of bed in my boxers? I hope not, because that’s exactly what they saw. You’re on vacation, or a work trip, and your mental clock is off. What’s wrong with swinging by, say, 10ish to change the sheets and drop off new towels? And when I told her I needed another hour so I could finish some work on the computer, she smiled a distant smile and answered: “Sorry, no English.” Lovely.

• Have you ever come across cab drivers who don’t have a fare machine? They exist. I got one in Phoenix, and he basically suggested a price to tote us from one spot to another. When he tried to tweak the fare once he hit our destination, we didn’t budge. We might be tourists, but we’re not pushovers.

• OK, this is a bit off the path, but do you ever wonder why you see one random shoe on the side of the road but never two? I’ve always been baffled about this. At the airport baggage claim the other night, there’s one black dress shoe sitting on the white tile, like an island in the Pacific. Am I missing something? Are there that many people wobbling about out there with one shoe?

• Is there anything worse than that humid, stuffy feeling that takes over a plane when it’s delayed on the tarmac and the ventilation shuts down? I can think of a few worse, but it’s on the list.

• I’m not a big fan of taxi lines. In most major metropolitan areas, there should be an ample supply of cabs to keep those lines moving outside the airport, and yet you still see long, winding lines of people waiting for a lift. And do you tip the guy who leans in to tell the cab driver where you’re going? Thanks, pal, I could have handled that. It’s like handing a buck over to the bathroom attendant for turning the faucet on and handing you a paper towel. Completely unnecessary — and a bit awkward. And keeping with the cab line thought, it’s easily one of the most painful parts of any Vegas excursion, when all you want to do is be “in Vegas,” yet you’re stuck plodding along in line, one by one, feeling like tomorrow’s steak dinner on your way to the casinos.

• I discovered that landing in fog can be a religious experience. If you let it. Not seeing the runway until you’re 20 feet above it certainly makes you pray, if anything.

• I must admit, I’m not a big fan of letting first-class passengers onboard early. Most of them are sipping mimosas and reading the stock report before I even hear my “Group 5” called, and then like some peasant, I have to trudge past them with their plush, oversized seats and Rolex-clad wrists. Wouldn’t it make for less hassle to fill the plane from the back forward, or is that too simple?

• And last but not least, I’ve got to touch on the creatures you get to sit next to on planes. It’s almost become rare to settle in next to someone who could be considered normal in most walks of life. A month ago, I had the pleasure of sharing a row with a salesmen who already had his shoes off and was rubbing his feet by the time I sat down. That might not have been a problem if it wasn’t the first time he had his shoes off in three days. There was seriously a funk cloud following him, like the Pig Pen character in the “Peanuts” cartoons. In the last year, I’ve also had an elderly woman fall asleep on my arm, but I didn’t have the heart to wake her up with a jolt, as I would have done with most others. Or what about the person who is all geared up to gab despite you making it more than obvious you’d like nothing more than a little nappy time? That’s always a good time.

Ah, I do love traveling so. Can’t you tell?

Check out the current Chicago Speaks department for more pet peeves while traveling.

Trent Modglin
Publisher
The Real Chicago
Trent@TheRealChicago.org

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