Holiday Travel Sucks

There's just no way around it.  Traveling over the holidays is no fun unless you're flying an airline on which you've achieved something like a Titanium level membership.  Otherwise, we're a bunch of cattle getting shoe-horned onto planes eating bad food out of a box.

But if the treatment we get from the airlines isn't bad enough, I came across a lot of evidence over the holidays that we treat each other pretty poorly, as well. 

People not watching where they're going and then getting all pissy when you act upset that they ran into you.  Letting little kids hack and wheeze and sneeze all over the rest of us without so much as a little apology.  And high profile people headed for first-class (yes, I DID recognize you) who cut in front of eight-year-olds about to board a plane and then act like they didn't see the cutest child in the world headed with her boarding pass to the gate agent.

If we know we're going to be treated like poor country cousins by the airlines if we're only buying a coach class ticket, why can't we spare a little kindness for each other? 

Common courtesy has been abandoned in favor of the 'every man for himself' outlook on the world.  The skies are pretty unfriendly these days -- trying to remember all the things you have to do getting through security, dealing with Homeland Security employees who question whether the child you're traveling with is yours because you don't look alike, and then insisting on patting down your second-grader because her sweatshirt is baggy.  There just isn't much I see to make for an enjoyable travel experience and things seem to be going downhill.

So for a united New Year's resolution, can I ask that we all be just a little more kind and considerate of each other as we trudge through airports in 2008?  You know we're not going to get any slack from flight attendants who insist that only the first-class passengers can use the restrooms at the front of the plane or from surly screeners who can't recognize a family traveling together, so we're going to have to rely on each other to make traveling less of a hellish experience in the new year.

You can also find Joanne at her blog, PunditMom, and others, including MOMocrats.