Forgiving And Patience When Traveling

The preacher had a two-fold sermon on Sunday. Sunday morning he talked about being a “forgiving person”. Sunday night he encouraged us to be “patient people”. Outstanding qualities desirable in all of us, but what does that have to do with travel?

If you've ever ridden on an airplane lately, you get a chance to practice each of those qualities, more often than not. I'm thinking about the person sitting behind you who has their legs crossed and is bouncing their feet against your seat back in rhythm to whatever tune they are listening to on their headphone. Or the child sitting behind you doing a rat-a-tat tat on your seatback. Resist being upset and just ask politely to please refrain from kicking your seat. If the problem persists, then simply alert the flight attendant about the situation. That's being patient.....then forgiving.

In the current coach class configuration, it should be forbidden to lean the seats back to their fullest extension. . . .but it's not, so here is a good opportunity to practice patience and forgiving. Once it is brought to their attention, most people will respond and release their seat a little to give you more room. It's not productive to be combative, so if they persist to lay back into your lap, then again ask for the flight attendant “police” to intercede for you.

Another touchy situation is when you are sitting next to someone whose body oder is gagging. Of course, we don't know their situation, they might have been to an intense job interview, or they might have just argued a murder case before a jury, or they might have just splashed their body with perfume to cover the fact they had not had time to bathe. So again, look around the plane and see if there are any empty seats and ask permission to be able to move, if not, put a napkin in your hand and put it over your mouth and nose and lean over on the arm rest away from the odor and breath in and out of the napkin......all the while, forgiving, and being patient.

How about the middle seat arm rest? Who gets to put their arm on them (there's two, you know)? Well, the best thing to do is the person next to the window should use the arm rest under the window, the person sitting on the aisle seat should use the aisle rest (but watch the service cart and the big-hipped people). That gives the middle person the use of both of the arm rests, after all, they have a middle seat (there's got to be a perk somewhere in there). That's both forgiving and patient. And if everybody traveling reads these “rules”, and abides by them, I might want a middle seat next time!!

What if you are sitting on a window seat and need to go to the bathroom. Well, first of all, you should have attended to that matter before boarding, but since you didn't, just say “Excuse Me” to your next door neighbor(s), hopefully they'll be understanding and forgiving. If they are asleep, quietly touch them and ask their pardon, and like a lady told me one time, “when you gotta go, you gotta go”.

The experienced travel agents practice forgetting and forgiving all day long, so give us a call and help us stay in practice. We will help you manufacture the vacation of your dreams, and will be here to advise you from planning stage to showing us your memory pictures. We are at The Travel Factory, 4150 Southwest Drive, Ste 120 or call us at 698-1421 or 800-760-4040, or visit our helpful website, www.thetravelfactoryabilene.com.