One of the reasons I am staying away from home for two weeks is because now that I am in Europe it is rather inexpensive to travel around the continent. I wanted to visit with a client in Geneva and a partner in Naples, and the best way to do that was to fly Easyjet.

Easyjet is Europe’s answer to Southwest airlines, although they are even more down market. There are no connecting flights and no free services on the plane – you basically pay for a seat. If you want drinks, snacks or duty free the helpful attendants are more than willing to sell it to you.

Check in was pretty simple, and I made my way to the gate. The flight didn’t seem to be that crowded, and since I wasn’t sleepy I took a window seat.

I though I was going to have a row to myself, but at the last minute the population of New Dehli boarded the plane. I am serious – a huge group of Indians traveling together: parents, grandparents and children, noisily entered the plane and began to disrupt the reset of the passengers by trying to sit together. The two seats next to me soon became full.

Since there were other seats available, I moved back a couple of rows so that there wouldn’t be anyone in the middle seat next to me. Unfortunately, this meant that two of the seats in front of me would now be occupied by children – bored children whose idea of fun was to see how quickly they could move the seat back and forth and, it appeared to me, they were also having “drop the tray table” races.

The parents were, of course, oblivious to all of this. People often ask me why we chose to remain childfree, and this is a major example. I don’t know if it is poor parenting or just that the parents have been exposed to poor behavior so long that they’ve given up, but my Dad would have disciplined me instantly if I’d acted the way these kids did. Perhaps it’s no longer considered proper, but I still think a well timed smack can work wonders on a child’s attitude.

Being Easyjet, I moved again. From my new seat I could still see the children, as well as their parents. I felt extremely sorry for the poor sod in the window seat on that row. The father did take the time out to unwrap some sandwiches he had brought on board for the children, as well as some orange juice. The wrappers and bits of sandwich quickly made it onto the floor, while the little girl (it was a girl and I assume her younger brother) discovered that if you try to slam your tray table up with a glass of orange juice on it, it will spill all over the back of the seat. She also experimented with a remedy, namely to scream at the top of her voice “I need a tissue!”, repeatedly.

Ah, the joys of travel.

Luckily the flight was rather short, and I arrived in Geneva on time.