Greetings everyone, and welcome to the first 2018 edition of “What Grinds My Gears,” my monthly column in which I rant about things that drive me nuts… Even though you didn’t ask!

I am currently writing this edition while cruising at 30,000 feet on my way back to the frozen tundra that is Springfield, Mass. after spending five glorious weeks at home in the ever-so-perfect southern Florida.

For those of you on campus who know me or at least follow me on social media, you know I travel a great deal. I’m constantly on a plane setting off on my next adventure, so I have built up a pretty amazing tolerance to ridiculous stuff that can happen to me – either while at the airport or while flying.

But in this edition of my column I am going to list off several things that drive me absolutely insane while I am traveling.

First let’s start off with the fact that airports in the south are not able to handle even the slightest of inclement weather. Case in point, while I was packing to get ready for my flight that was supposed to be leaving for 7 p.m.,

I got a notification that it was cancelled due to the Charlotte airport not being able to receive flights because of the ice on the runways… Now I understand that the south is not used to weather conditions that bring snow and ice, but it’s not unheard of down there. Why don’t the airports have salt trucks and plow trucks just in case the weather warrants the use of them? This, instead of shutting down because they have to wait for trucks to come in from somewhere else?

Another airport that was shut down was Atlanta… Now I don’t know how many of you have flown through Atlanta but it’s a huge airport that is actually the busiest airport by volume in the ENTIRE WORLD. So many flights connect through there, it’s ridiculous.

GET IT TOGETHER SOUTHERN STATES… PEOPLE HAVE PLACES TO BE AND DO NOT HAVE TIME TO WAIT FOR YOU TO GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!!!

Another one of my pet peeves while flying is barely having enough time to get to your connecting flight. As I was traveling back home to Florida, I had a 36-MINUTE LAYOVER.

Now luckily I was flying through Charlotte which is not a large airport so I was able to make it but you guys be sure of it, your girl got in her cardio in the airport because I had to legitimately run from one terminal to the next.

BE BETTER AIRLINES! Layovers less than an hour are doing nothing but providing customers stress because if their first flight is even a little bit late, they have a real chance of missing their connecting flights… Which is just annoying, makes people grouchy, and is probably a nightmare for your ground crew.

The last issue I am going to talk about for this edition is one that drives me absolutely mad and is most likely to put a person on the receiving end of an attitude from me.

Now I am not a huge fan of sitting down for a long time because I get uncomfortable being in the same position after awhile. So when I get on a plane, I’m already dreading having to sit in the same seat for hours. One thing that can make this worse is when I get to my row and I find someone sitting in my seat.

Now I am a rational person and I realize that plane rows can be confusing and people get mixed up which is totally fine, but what I am not fine with is when I point out someone’s mistake and they either get upset because they were hoping the seat wasn’t taken or get upset when I tell them I don’t want to switch seats with them.

I pick out my seats when I purchase my tickets because, like most other people have a preferred seat (which is window in my case). So it is honestly so annoying when I catch attitudes from people who want my seat…like if you wanted my seat you should have selected it before me… It’s literally not my problem.

…And that’s what grinds my gears.