Great story tommyleo. I can picture your unfortunate situation perfectly.

Safetymom is absolutely right about those Bose headphones. They're the best money ever spent, both for MP3 music, or simply for canceling out 90% of the cabin noise. I got mine after returning from a MAD flight in which some clowns spent the whole night talking ( and ear plugs didn't come close to handling their chatter).

You've still got time to ask Santa to bring you a pair of Bose C3s ( a bit more expensive than the C2s, but smaller ).

Barry