The privileged need their own space — preferably away from me

I’ve gotten to the point in my life where staying home is usually more appealing than traveling.

Traveling often involves being around this incredibly annoying critters — whaddya call ‘em? — oh yeah, humans.

When you travel, you often find yourself surrounded by humans — in traffic jams on the interstate, on trains and subways, on city sidewalks, in elevators, on escalators, in lines and in airplanes. And if you’re me, once you get on a plane and finally cram your luggage into an overhead bin packed with too many purses and tiny Minnie Mouse bags that can easily go under a seat, you then get squished between a couple of folks who have smoker’s breath and barely fit into their own seat.

“You don’t mind if I lay my fat flap on your thigh, do you?”

“Oh, by all means, please. Kinda feels like one of those squishy neck pillows on my leg. Let me guess … Marlboro Lights?”

However, I do put up with humans for the sake of cruising. I simply love being on a ship for a week with folks feeding me and making my bed. Unfortunately, cruise lines have a tendency to book every single cabin on these ships, which means another 2,000 to 4,000 humans are likely to be on board.

The vast majority of these humans are decent folks. Just like when you’re stuck in a traffic jam, most drivers just deal with it, but you’ve always got that one privileged idiot who thinks he needs to rev his motor and blow his horn as if the other 4,752 drivers were conspiring to slow him down.

On my most recent cruise, which was just a little four-day getaway, most of the folks were pretty decent, but when you’re crammed into that tight of a spot with so many humans, the privileged will reveal themselves.

On the first night, one fella was so angry that he was screaming at the guest services workers — who, like most crew members, are from everywhere but the U.S. He stormed away from the desk and grabbed an Indian fellow by the arm and demanded, “What do you do here?! What’s your job?!”

“I’m just a passenger,” he said.

“Fine, somebody get me the captain!”

Um, no. I don’t want the captain of my ship coming down to deal with every whiny passenger. Someone’s got to watch out for those Bahamian icebergs.

Later, while lying by the pool, a couple of ladies approached one of the crew who was delivering drinks. They were angry because some water from the pool had splashed into their drinks, and they wanted them replaced.

Um, sometimes that happens when you have a drink by the pool. Deal with it. That’s about as stupid as trying to eat a lighted candle at your dinner table and complaining to the waiter that it burned your mouth.

It’s these kind of privileged folks who leave their shopping carts in parking spaces, throw cigarette butts on the street, talk loudly on cell phones and generally get offended on a daily basis that tire me out. It makes me not want to travel, and it makes me want to stay out of big cities.

It makes me want to simply stay home on my back porch and enjoy the peace and quiet far from all of those privileged idiots who congregate in other places. I might even partake in a frozen margarita. No danger of any pool water splashing in it here.

What? What do you mean the Margaritaville machine is broken? That’s the second one! Do you know how much that cost?! We buy his books, his tequila, t-shirts, concert tickets, wooden signs with parrots and margarita glasses! He owes me! GET JIMMY BUFFETT ON THE PHONE RIGHT NOW!

This story was originally published July 17, 2017 at 11:10 AM with the headline "The privileged need their own space — preferably away from me."