Overhead Bins On Airliners Are Perfect For Fish

Here’s my gift to humanity: I never put any luggage in the overhead storage bins. I donate that extra space to the world.

This is not altruism. I’m just a checked-baggage kind of guy. I don’t know why; I just don’t relish the idea of hauling my suitcase all over an airport, bumping it down the aisle of a plane and then wrestling it over my head and cramming into the overhead bin.

Flying is obnoxious enough without that.

I’m constantly amazed by the behemoths that people carry on to a plane. Someday, I swear, some guy will come thumping down the aisle with one of those steamer trunks, the size of a refrigerator carton. He’ll have the thing on wheels to more easily truck it down the aisle, and as he approaches his seat, it will be clunking behind him like a freight car.

When he gets to his place, he’ll open up the storage bin, eyeball it for a few seconds, and then eyeball his steamer trunk. Obviously, he’s thinking, I should just have the flight attendant take this godzilla and check it in the baggage compartment. That’s what he’s thinking, but of course, that’s not what he does.

What he does is take a few deep breaths, puffing out his cheeks and blowing out air like a Bulgarian weightlifter named Bratislav. Then he’ll squat down in the aisle. With a mighty grunt, assuming a grunt can ever be mighty, he’ll execute a magnificent clean-and-jerk, hoisting that trunk over his head, aiming it directly toward that overhead bin, miscalculating only slightly and dropping it on the head of a little old lady named Rose who is off to visit the grandkids in Muskegon.

He’ll say, “Sorry,” and then start the process all over again, and again, and again, and again. Then he’ll lose his temper and attempt to enlarge the bin with his fist.

The airline security people will finally be alerted, and they’ll surround the guy and hustle him out of there, about the time that he is trying to pound his trunk into the overhead bin using somebody else’s portable computer as a hammering device.

Actually, I’m always surprised at how much luggage can fit into one of those bins. Just when I think the thing is crammed full, some woman will come along with a flowered overnight bag. She’ll savagely shove the other bags to one side, popping their seams, compacting them down like yesterday’s trash. Then she’ll wedge her own bag in so tight that at the end of the flight, she’ll have to solicit the assistance of Bratislav the Bulgarian weightlifter to help her pry it out.

In any case, it seems that space is always at a premium in those bins, so I hope my seatmates appreciate the extra room. I am on a plane as I write these words, and I am proud to say that because of me, the other people have more room for those carry-on items that they find it necessary to keep in their possession at all times while they travel: Computers, vanity bags with spare underwear, boom boxes, fly rods, Oriental rugs, small kitchen appliances and live chickens. As I write this I am witnessing a dad attempting to place a small toddler in the overhead bin, explaining gently to the wee tot that, “Daddy saves a lot of money on tickets this way.”

Occasionally, I have had to use the overhead bins myself, but never for my children. I use them only for - and I make this a very strict rule - for transporting seafood.

The first time I did this, I brought an entire chinook salmon from Seattle to Denver, for our family reunion barbecue. The second time, I brought two Maine lobsters from Boston to Spokane.

This caused a small sensation in the passenger cabin, but I don’t see why everybody got so agitated. The lobsters were rounded up in minutes, and besides they couldn’t have hurt a soul. Their claws were rubber-banded shut.

Normally, I am content to put the my modest carry-on luggage underneath the seat in front of me, per the instructions of the flight attendant. This works fine for my purposes, although I will admit that on this flight, I had just the tiniest bit of difficulty fitting my golf clubs under there.

But just as in the overhead bins, if you shove hard enough, you can make anything fit.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review