Window Peekers

I will post a real posting soon, today it is just my relaying the trip over here and venting over those who make it not so enjoyable.

We made it back to Japan ok and are currently driving through Tokyo to get home. Last night after getting in we drove to Chiba to stay at a friends house and today made the trip back up to Karuizawa. The kids were up most of the night! Not sure where they get their energy from- I certainly wanted to be sleeping all night.

Most of you have not experienced this I am sure- I think you have to be on an international flight for this to happen. We left Washington DC in the afternoon and flew through the night. The only problem is it never gets dark outside. Now I am sure you are saying what’s the problem? Window Peekers. They are those that have window seats and constantly feel the need to lift the shade to look outside. This would not upset most people, but it certainly did not have me very happy on the flight. When you have a 5 yr old and a 3 yr old seeing everyone around them awake and up and light outside they are not that co-operative to go to sleep. Finally after about 8 hrs had passed of our 14 hr flight Titus was asleep and I knew if I could get the guy with his window open to shut it so it would not be shining in our eyes, I might have a prayer to get Meg to sleep as well. Yes- you can just call me the Window Peeker Police. I felt like that the whole time the cabin lights were dimmed. After getting the horrible window closed and Meg asleep, about 9 hrs into the flight, from the opposite side of the plane, someone else started opening their window. This time I put Kevin on it since I now had a sleeping Meg on me. With still 4 hrs left in the flight yet another person just HAD to look outside. This was the WORST type of window peeker though because he was not content to open it and leave it open. He would open it and shut it, then open it a min later, then 30 secs later, then 3 mins later. This went on for about ½ an hour and finally after Kevin received many wifely glares of “get up and get that taken care of or your wife will Really be in a bad mood when this thing is done” look we got it shut.

Experiences like this really put me in a bad mood and make me think up all sorts of good ways to deal with this problem.

#1 Every plane should come equipped with window shade locks- when the switch is thrown to dim the cabin lights, all windows are locked shut so no one can peek out.

#2 (my personal favorite) Every person who occupies a window seat when they check in must provide their credit card and sign a waiver that states if they open their window during the dimmed cabin time they will be automatically charged some ridiculous fee. Is opening a window to see nothing really worth $500??

#3 A simple announcement when they dim the lights to remember that people are sleeping and to not open your window would at least be nice, and flight attendants that ask people to keep their windows shut

I have learned you have to be bold in order to keep those windows shut if I want my kids to stay asleep and not disturb everyone on the plane- trust me, you do not want to wake up a child that has only gotten 3-4 hours of sleep- it can be pretty ugly.

Anyone know where to get those eye covers in a child size?