The Joy of Flight

Dear Viewers,

After three hours of sleep, I boarded a plane for Los Angeles, where I am now. My flight gave me time to think about the many ways one can annoy fellow passengers. I thought I would share these tips with you:

• Wear heavy cologne, or perfume so that fellow passengers in the enclosed compartment can taste it even long after the flight has landed. You might want to add more perfume mid-flight if you don't think enough people are choking. Perfume and cologne are especially 'good' if you happen to be on the plane with passengers who have perfume triggered migraine headaches.

• When you get up to use the restroom, be sure to grab the back of the seat in front of you and pull yourself up so you can awaken the passenger sitting in that seat. Banging the seat with your full body weight will wake anyone. Likewise hit all the seats as you make your way down the aisle to the restroom -- you may get lucky and hit a seat with another sleeping passenger.

• As you get up from your seat, if you put your hands far enough over the seat in front of you, you might be able to pull the hair of the passenger in that seat. Of course your chances of this are increased if it is a woman with long hair in that seat. 
 
• Coughing without covering your mouth is always good -- especially after that SARS scare! Do enough coughing without covering your mouth and you will successfully scare the entire cabin. You might want to mention out loud that you had a great trip to the Orient last week. Flying while sick is always inspirational to the other passengers.

• If you have a child, think about letting him play with the seat buckle. He can snap it all across the country and keep everyone awake or just annoyed. 
 
• If you have music, make sure you have poor quality headphones so that the eight nearest passengers can hear your music. It is a nice touch to 'get' those near you but unfortunately is not very effective to annoy anyone more than three rows away.

• Here is a really good one if you are on the redeye and everyone is sleeping: go to the front of the plane and engage in a conversation -- any stupid topic will do -- with the flight attendant who is awake. This is particularly good because you will need to talk over the engines of the plane and so you will be nice and loud and your voice will carry all the way back to the rear of the aircraft. I also recommend that after about an hour that you return to your seat for five minutes so that everyone thinks you have finished. Then, get back up to the front and start that loud conversation with the flight attendant again. Repeat topics is also quite 'special' since your fellow passengers will really 'appreciate' you telling the flight attendant again about your layover in Chicago a week earlier.

• Excessive drinking of alcohol is also not to be ignored as an effective tool for annoying passengers -- especially on a red-eye if you have a window seat. You can then repeatedly wake the row to go to the restroom. Plus on your way out of the row you can make some real dumb alcohol/bathroom jokes to the ones you have just awakened and unseated.

I hope these tips above are helpful. Of course, I did not include the old tried and true one: the talking passenger. When you are in a pinch, it always works to simply yak, yak and yak.

I hope to get some new tips as I return to Washington, D.C. on the red-eye on Thursday.

Greta

Watch On the Record with Greta Van Susteren weeknights at 10 p.m. ET