like a bat out of hell

is how i made the transition between planes in newark from cologne/newark to newark/houston. as always the cologne/newark flight was a petri dish of german/american cultural behaviror. the environment would make a social scientist giddy.

i was in the first row of peon class, an exit row that is in front of the boarding door, next to two very nice germans. the cologne/newark is on a tiny, old 757 with a 3-3 formation. the tv is in front of the door on the forward wall and dollhouse sized, so no one can really see it. but since CO's movie selection is usually crappy, no one cares.

this area is across from the kitchen and in front of the wall is a bathroom, so people congregate there, especially people walking around babies, etc. the flight attendants kept asking people to move aside, so as to not block the lilleputian screen. i was reading as were my two seatmates, so really it didn't matter. however, the americans dutifully moved aside, as did the germans, as someone in authority gave the request.

this was until my german seatmate stood in front of it. the flight attendant asks her to move and she says, why, as she's reading and he's asleep, i'm not blocking anyone. he blinks and says, well, the next row, because of the glare, they will often watch it. she then counters, 'it's so small i can barely see it, so i doubt they can.'

i'm baffled as to why this is worth arguing about, except that she is german, when the flight attendant puts his hand on his hip, whips out the gay snap and tells this grandmotherly german, 'oh honey, don't you dare give me trouble, uh-uh.' the german woman catchs that she's on a flight to america and dealing with an american and laughs. her husband, waking up to this controversy says, 'well, she's been like this for 40 years, good luck if you can get her under control. (insert loud german guffaw here).

it's great to be back stateside.