Sir, could you just put your tray table up? Please. For the love of mankind.

You know what's funny (I'm not going to wait to hear your answers, sorry!); flying on airplanes.

A lot of people get anxiety, or irrational thoughts, or both (not me). A lot of people can't fall asleep the night before because they think they're going to sleep through their alarms in the morning for their 7 am flight (that would be me). A lot of people over pack (again, usually me) and a lot of people forget something (rarely me). However, most people would not say that flying on airplanes is funny.

And you know what, I guess it's really not. But I'm going to proceed with my original thoughts.

So after all seventeen (read: two) of my alarms went off this morning to make sure I'd be awake, I blindly stumbled into the shower (read: got caught in the curtain) and tried to make sure I'd remember my itinerary that was pinned to the board by my door (read: not like I would ever forget an important document whilst trying to navigate anything related to an airline...definitely not speaking from experience), I made my way to the Bellingham International Airport (prestigious, yes?).

The first thing I noticed and the first thing I noted was that today's terrorist alert level was, in fact, orange. Now what I want to know is, what exactly constitutes a declaration of a color in the terrorist alert level system. Because not only is orange directly underneath a code red terrorist threat, but it's also DIRECTLY UNDERNEATH A CODE RED TERRORIST THREAT. Needless to say, I felt calm and reassured as I walked through the airport today. Who is in charge of dictating today's precise terrorist color, because I want to know what constitutes an orange? It's a nice day (check). It's a weekend (check). It's May (check). It's my cat's birthday (check). AHH, must be code orange today, let me make the call.

After I boarded the plane (through the back, I tell you), I sat in my seat. It was nice. It was a nice airplane seat, on the aisle. The pilot let us know that we would be leaving shortly, on time. Excellent. Twenty minutes later, the captain announces they're ready to go except for some paperwork they're doing in the cabin. Paperwork? Excuse me, captain-pilot-man, please finish your Sudoku so we can get things rolling. Places to be!

Did you know you have to pay for water now, on the planes? Did you know? I think that's pretty funny. Don't even start with me on paying for checked luggage. Naturally, I went carry on.

And how often do you see male flight attendants? Sometimes. And how often do you see male flight attendants who are definitely the same age as you? Rarely. Well guess what I saw today. YES. A male flight attendant who was the same age as me. Sort of funny.

Fast forward to our final descent into Los Angeles: the Howie-AJ Backstreet Boy Hybrid across the row from me is still listening to his iPod. Clearly, the captain just said not two minutes ago to stow all electronics away and put your tray tables in the upright position. Do you want to guess if his tray table was in the upright position? Because it wasn't. So Mr. My-Age-Male-FA comes back and kindly asks AJHowie to please put his tray table up. So AJHowie puts it up and carelessly turns the knob so that I'm positive it's about to fall back down.

And does it? Yes. It falls at an angle that if it were to shoot off, it would break AJHowie's nose. Now why does this bother me, you might ask? Oh I don't care about it breaking his nose. Is it that hard to put your tray table up (and not to mention turn off your electronics) when the captain asks you to? It's not like the captain came over the intercom and said: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are preparing for our descent into Los Angeles. In preparation, would you please get into the aisle way and do 30 triangle push ups, one round of the Macarena, and then meet and greet at least six people around you." That would be unreasonable. ALL HE WANTED was to put the tray tables up. So obnoxious. So not funny.

Did he fix the tray? Yes, he did, seconds before we were about to touch the landing strip. And yes, I did breathe a rather large sigh of relief. Loser, I know. Me, not him. Maybe both of us though.