An Australian’s View of Overhead Storage

When I got ready to board my Friday afternoon flight from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport to John Wayne Airport, I noticed a woman that I’ve sat next to on a few of my regular weekend flights was waiting to board our semi-on-time flight, so I went over and talked with her. If you think my story is unusual, you should hear about her travel life. Both her and her husband have children from previous marriages, and they work together in the real estate market. The really unusual part about this is he lives in Austin, TX, and she lives in Newport Beach, CA, with their respective children, and during the week, she spends it with him in Austin and her weekends are spent in California—her children are old enough to take care of themselves, but if they weren’t, that would take the term latch-key children to a whole new level!

When our flight was finally ready to board, we walked down the jetway, and when I noticed where she was sitting, I told her I had thought about booking that seat earlier, but since it was 1-A on a 737, I was pretty sure I’d be dodging everyone’s feet as they boarded—my legs are a little long, and that seat is right next to the door.

Since I also was in the first row, 1-F, I had to store my computer bag in the overhead storage as the galley was in front of me with a solid partition separating it from my seat. Just after I put my bag away, a man with a very thick Australian accent sitting next to my frequent travel companion asked me, “Would you like to store that in the next bin?” Confused as to his request, I replied, “No, thank you, I like it where it is.” With full bore, he replied with a huff, “You taking up enough room for four people!”

Since the Australian was of European descent and not aboriginal, being only slightly shorter than me, I was confused by what he was getting at—at first, I took him literally. Yes, my computer bag is a bit overstuffed and may weigh 25 lbs. with all my cables, camera, and computer stuffed in there, but it easily fits under the seat in front of me on most airplanes (I’ve only had problems with Airbus jets in first class), and since it wouldn’t even fit a 17" laptop in it, a small child is bigger than it, so I imagined him—in true J.D.-daydreaming-on-Scrubs form—trying to shove four small people into an overhead bin. Okay, that thought didn’t last long, since it was just as ridiculous as the man’s claim about my luggage, although I have heard there is a mafia presence in Australia…I’ve seen a few Jackie Chan movies to back that up.

My second thought was that Australian planes must be made for smaller people and he was used to not having any overhead space. That thought was readily dismissed, too, as I had spent time in New Zealand in college and knew that planes in that area of the world were not, on principle, cramped cattle cars, especially in the first class cabin where we were seated.

So, I finally just chalked it up to a very exhausted and/or drunken man’s imagination and chose not to talk across the aisle for the hour-long flight to the woman living a more unusual travel/home life than mine. She also was surprised at his outburst, as she spent the entire flight engrossed in her book, only moving once to use the restroom and the other time to reply about the book she was reading to the flight attendants sitting in the jump seat across from her as we were landing—she’s usually a very talkative person.