Surviving the "Friendly" Skies

Flying really isn't that much fun anymore: passengers are irritable; airline staff are cranky; and cute kids in normal circumstances turn into kids-on-flights. I have noticed this more acutely over the recent months. Here are a couple of possible reasons:

• The airlines are charging for everything! ¢50 per toilet paper square
• We have begun our descent into [fill in city], please begin turning off your iPod, laptop, DVD player, cell phone, satellite radio, sound canceling head phones, washing machine, dryer, refrigerator (which would actually come in handy since they don't feed you anymore).
• Planes are packed. I'm sorry, isn't that my lap?
• Place the mask over your nose and mouth before helping others. The bag may not inflate, but oxygen will be "flowing" through the mask.
• You will not make your connection and the two later flights are each oversold; you're thirteenth on the list
• "No really, it's okay, let me get up" before you crawl from the window to the aisle...for the fifth time
• Chatty Charlie
• I think Aunt Jemima was my flight attendant
• My luggage is in Siberia (again?)
• On take off, the kid in front of me is repeatedly saying loudly, "we're going to crash; we're going to crash" and the kid behind me is saying, "the plane is broken" & "when are we going to land?"
• $5 for peanuts? Really, but this is a round-the-world flight.
• In case of a water landing... (do I really have to say more?)