emma69

Candy-wise, fruit mentos have to be in my handbag. I don't eat candy, ever, apart from flying (chocolate is another matter) but there is almost always a pack of mentos and fruit mentos in my flying handbag! I suspect it is a throwback to childhood - my mother had a thing for opal fruits, and the only time we were allowed them was to keep us quiet - generally on a long car journey, a flight, or when she was watching Wimbledon on television!

cubbie

I indulge in a lot of the guilty pleasures mentioned in this thread, so I'll probably be back to mention more, but for the moment I'll second the desire to have some kind of fruity candy with me. I almost never eat candy at home, but I do like having some Jelly Bellies or other type of jelly beans or other fruity candy (Starburst, Good 'n' Fruity, etc.) with me on a plane trip. My husband knows this about me and always buys me some before a trip.

Once, years ago, on a flight from Phoenix to Chicago that was delayed repeatedly in taking off and landing and getting to a gate, I wound up the seat row mate of two little Spanish-speaking boys whose mother seemed have conspired with the flight attendants to be allowed to park her sons on either side of me and go farther back in the plane to a single seat and fall sound asleep for the duration of the flight. Being able to speak some Spanish, I kept the two muchachos happy (and kept them from fighting with each other) by helping them get the kind of food and drink they liked from the flight attendants, getting headphones for them for a movie ("Miss Congeniality") and feeding them all of my fruity candies (and all my Tic Tacs and everything else edible I could find in my purse). This flight that should have taken about 4 hours ended more than 9 hours later. Several seat and row neighbors complimented me, at the end of our much-delayed flight, on having the best-behaved children they'd ever seen on a plane. I had to confess I'd never seen these little boys before in my life. I was a little bit crushed when they rushed off the plane into the arms of their father without a backward glance toward me.

I'm not sure if it is because of them or because I might wind up sitting next to little boys like them again or because, just for myself, I might wind up again someday on a 4-hr flight that takes 9 hours that I like to know I have some fruity candies with me before I get on a plane.

FlyingUnderTheRadar

Good beer, damn good beer, real beer. I think nothing about spending $20 on a bottle of excellent beer.

RoyalFlush

I love those avocado toiletries from Doubletrees!

And, I'm a bit embarassed to admit, the bagel toppers at Hamptons!

Mabuk dan gila

Booze and hookers.

BuildingMyBento

Say what?

"Topper" sounds like marketing ploy if I've ever heard one.

LukeRB

Here you go: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/bu...pagewanted=all

Fascinating indeed.

Chimbaobao

I go to Mcdonald and ..slot, because we don't have McDonald and slot in my homeland.One of the reasons that I'm gaining weight and poor

ysolde

Thank you, Luke!

ShantanuThakur

When I was in college and underage, I enjoyed drinking booze at airport restaurants, because they never ask for ID, LOL.

Bumps

Gin Tonic on every flight they offer drinks

Coffee & Croissant at ZHR LX Lounge
I know, you may get better ones just outside the lounge but having been forced on early morning LX flights almost 2x a week for 3 years, they still have the taste of "on the road again"

crabbing

oh, how i miss when virgin america used to include jelly bellies among their snacks. on one transcon, i ordered six bags (although i only ate one; the rest were for my kids).

ALittleSurreal

Once, years ago, on a flight from Phoenix to Chicago that was delayed repeatedly in taking off and landing and getting to a gate, I wound up the seat row mate of two little Spanish-speaking boys whose mother seemed have conspired with the flight attendants to be allowed to park her sons on either side of me and go farther back in the plane to a single seat and fall sound asleep for the duration of the flight. Being able to speak some Spanish, I kept the two muchachos happy (and kept them from fighting with each other) by helping them get the kind of food and drink they liked from the flight attendants, getting headphones for them for a movie ("Miss Congeniality") and feeding them all of my fruity candies (and all my Tic Tacs and everything else edible I could find in my purse). This flight that should have taken about 4 hours ended more than 9 hours later. Several seat and row neighbors complimented me, at the end of our much-delayed flight, on having the best-behaved children they'd ever seen on a plane. I had to confess I'd never seen these little boys before in my life. I was a little bit crushed when they rushed off the plane into the arms of their father without a backward glance toward me.

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That is a very sweet story and you are definitely person of the year, but this is all kinds of outrageous though. How old were those boys? Why didn't you switch seats with their mother (if the switch would not have been uncomfortable for you.) WHY did you even agree to do this? Why did you sit between the boys? Why couldn't you have just told the flight attendant that the boys needed to be seated with their mother? I would never want to be in this siutation (and I am the mother of 5 and love kids!), but I would not want to be responsible for them or liable for anything. Also why was this a guilty "pleasure" for you?

Sorry my questions are off topic...I'll bring it back by saying my guilty pleasure is sitting in my aisle seat and silently judging everyone

cubbie

Fruit candies are the guilty pleasure, not babysitting strangers' kids on airplanes. You're probably right, ALittleSurreal; in hindsight, I should have managed the situation differently, and these days maybe would. But I am not a very outspoken person in general, and this was several years ago, when I didn't have as much flying experience as I do now, and to be honest, I wasn't paying too much attention to what was happening until it was too late--in the middle of late boarding of an overbooked flight--to try to get the flight attendant's attention and arrange some seat swaps. It wasn't until much later, when I went back to the bathroom once and saw the mother snoring peacefully away, that I realized how I'd been taken advantage of and felt annoyed.

Anyway, not unrelated to coping with annoyances and definitely related to the topic of this thread, guilty pleasures while flying, I have since learned that fruity candies go great with gin and tonic.

Cassie55

Starbucks Frappuccino at the airport (and this includes LHR where I frequently go but don't fly).

Coffee with Baileys onboard.