Pants, Socks and the Guy Next To Me
So in my last blog I talked about Traveling Companions; or, important stuff I always take with me
when traveling (if that’s not
obvious). I sort of mentioned socks, but
I didn’t get into pants.
Pants are pretty important, unless you’re going some where not wearing pants is legal. I am sure there are such places, but I have never really looked into it. Florida?
Scandinavia (in the summer)? My
favorite, a marvelous invention, are the ones where the legs zip off, giving a
person the option of transferring to shorts
… if the day gets hot. And then, like a
miracle, back to pants in the evening when all the mosquitos and other flying
nightmares arrive.
However my favorite pants are classic, plain old blue jeans,
or jeans as is the modern
lexicon. Jeans are tough, don’t show
dirt easily and these days can be worn with formal impunity almost
anywhere. Since the zip-off pants/shorts
tend to have cargo pockets, which tend to fill up with an amazing amount
detritus (stuff), they are not that comfortable on airplanes and can be a
hassle to empty out all that stuff
(once again) when going through the TSA.
Plus I have found the zippers halfway up your leg tend to chafe when stuck
sitting on an airplane for five to twenty hours.
Now since jeans are cotton and bulky, like cotton t-shirts,
how do you avoid the overloaded luggage syndrome? You wear them. They can’t overstuff your bag if they are on
your butt. When I get to where I am
going, I carefully hang them up and only use them for the return trip. If I am continuing on by rented car, or some
such land mode, where I do have to squeeze them back into my luggage, it
doesn’t matter as much because the bag doesn’t have to be jammed into the overhead.
That overhead
compartment is a big complaint of mine.
On some airlines you couldn’t get a shaving kit in there. (Or, make-up
bag … really small thing?
Whatever?) And there are a lot of
overhead pigs, or people who spend
half the passenger loading time trying to push a manatee sized sack of shit
into a skinny compartment where it is obviously never going to go. Then the stewardess, or steward, has to climb
over everybody stacked up behind this idiot in the aisle and politely, ever so politely, ask if they could tag
the manatee and have it put in the cargo hold.
You can just see the look on the airline steward(ess) face,
“Jeez, every fuckin’ flight! Some jerk just won’t listen to the boarding
announcements! Which they say about a hundred
fucking times! Big
bags are NOT going to fit in THIS
aircraft overheads!!!.”
I NEVER check
baggage, after having it lost a bunch of times or waiting at the baggage check
for an hour for it to come whanging down the conveyor while my wife or
conscripted friend has to circle around the arrival
road about a hundred times. Airport cop angrily waving at them to move on every thirty seconds.
So pants are zip-off miracle fiber pants/shorts and jeans.
Socks. Socks are
tricky. Best avoided when and where
possible. But to get through TSA you have to be wearing socks – even if you
are a woman (unless you are a woman who really doesn’t mind dirty – with god
knows what grunge is on the floor on her feet.)
Men just can’t get away with it.
That really is a nasty look.
Socks through the flying stages. Oh and taking your shoes off after sitting
down on the airplane is only okay if
you’re wearing socks.
What kind of socks?
Nylon, polyester, more miracle fiber.
Never cotton. Cotton will droop,
smell bad and never dry out. Now colors – fortunately white is no longer
the only option, or black either. Lots
of really cool choices these days. I take
advantage of that. Red, blue, green,
stripes, checks, whatever. My new thing
is to not care if they match. A third of
them get lost in the sock laundry paranormal alternate universe anyway. Not half, but a third. Half would make sense and be symmetrically
workable, but it seems to be a non-symmetrical mathematical function. So who cares, it happens to everybody.
I just think, “What are you looking at my feet for
anyway?” It’s like I don’t know if women
actually do try to go through TSA barefoot.
I never really looked or cared to notice. I do think I’d have noticed if a man tried to
do that, “Now that’s gross.” Going through my mind.
This is once again long enough, I’ll get to “The Guy
Sitting Next To Me” next time.
Thanks for reading along.
Really, thanks.
dalepeterson.us
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