A weekly ode to the joys of moaning about your holiday, by Tim Roxborogh.
Humans are strange creatures. For the most part, if we are walking down the street or we're somewhere like a supermarket, we are understanding if someone cuts us off or bumps into us. As is well known though, put those same normally calm humans behind the wheel of a car and the bizarre psychology of road rage is there for all to see. You're hardly likely to yell expletives and do the finger at someone who accidentally knocks your supermarket trolley, but if that same person was a little slow taking off at the lights? "You f***ing c***!"
None of this is any sort of keen observation on the oddities of human behaviour on my part. Everyone knows there's (generally) a politeness away from the car and a mild insanity inside of it. What's less talked about is what I believe to be a near mirroring of bonkers car behaviour by car-less humans when disembarking from planes.
If you've flown, you will have been in this situation. The plane has landed and is fully stopped and with the seat belt sign off. Everyone is well and truly unclicked, the doors have opened and the line of passengers has started to move. The only problem is, you haven't yet made it out into the aisle and you still have to grab your overhead luggage while juggling whatever book or handbag is in your other hand. And nobody lets you in.
Nobody lets you in because they know you're not just jumping out into the aisle, but you're also going to bring the whole line to a halt while you fumble around for the luggage. The process is made even more awkward by not being able to completely stand upright while you're picking your moment, like a sharpshooter ready to pull the trigger, when you spot a brief opening.
