I was waiting behind this woman on the PHX T2 Elite TSA line. She was obviously a frequent flyer. She said she is Premier Exec on UA and Platinum on AA. She was bragging about how she would hide things on her to avoid the TSA's liquid/gel rules.

I happened to sit next to her on the flight. She used her Blackberry all the way to the runway. I hinted she should turn them off when we took off at PHX. She basically ignored me and said it did not matter. She did not turn it off. Less than 5 minutes after we took off, she started using it again (I believe transmitting messages). While we were approaching ORD, she started again and turned on another cell phone.

Whether cell phones cause problems in-flight is not the point here. (As it happened, we were in-flight during Superbowl and they patched through the radio broadcast on Channel 9 on UA).

This woman, Marsha something, seems like a big time stock broker type. I started wondering - TSA rule, FAA rule, would she be breaking SEC rules also? I know some of us frequent flyers do not like to put up with stupid rules. However, when do you deem a rule stupid and where do you draw the line?

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When we got to the gate at ORD, the FAs requested that we let those with connecting flights off first. Amazingly, most of the passengers complied (this rarely happens in my experience). This Marsha did not and squeezed her way through to get off (we were in in row 6 on a Ted flight).

I am so unimpressed by the behavior of this woman.