Take That, Sky Mall!

I was on an airplane last week and couldn't help but get really antsy after about 20 minutes of sitting in my tiny seat. After surveying my options (sticky in-flight magazine, sleeping neighbor, looking at the back of my tray table) I ended up eavesdropping on a conversation between a German girl and her mother. I eventually got frustrated because I couldn't understand what they were talking about and ended up passing out on my tray table for the rest of the flight.

In retrospect, it would be fun to have a little in-flight entertainment that built some camaraderie between bored passengers and/or made the harsh realities of flying a little more bearable. For instance, some sort of interactive trivia game or an in-flight chat room.

Or airplane bingo.

An airline, lets say Southwest (cheap, fun, etc.) could pass out Bingo cards at the beginning of the flight, and throughout the flight, passengers could check off/daub special icons on their cards every time:

- the seat belt sign goes on
- a baby cries
- the pilot makes an announcement
- the plane hits a rough patch of turbulence
- A flight attendant says 'overhead compartment' or 'electronic devices'
- other things that happen on a plane that i don't have the energy to think of at the moment

And the free space could be the safety demonstration at the beginning. But you can't check it off unless you watch it (wink).

Whoever gets bingo first will get, I don't know, say, an extra cookie.