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Once again, my Elite status with American Airlines has failed to get me into First Class.  It has, however, gotten me into a reclining exit row seat, which, as all seasoned economy class jet setters know, is the next best thing.

I’m sitting next to the trophy wife of a family of 5 who’ve secured the rest of the row.  She’s advising the middle daughter (there may be 10 years difference between them) across the aisle as to the wisdom of pulling out what she thinks she might need for the first 20 minutes of the flight out of her carry on and then storing it in the ‘overhead bin’ until ‘the captain has turned off the fasten seat belt sign.’   Solid advice, I think, if not somewhat obvious.

"Mom" has heeded her own advice too.  She’s packed a folder.  As we’re taxiing, she begins to peruse the contents.   LAX is NOT their final destination.   I know this because inside the folder is a 232 page dossier containing every possible detail about what must be the mother of all vacations.  I see "Fiji" on one sheet; "Sydney" on another.   She flips through page after page of itinerary details.   Every child has a separate one, evidently, and she’s made copies of each which she folds and places into 3 envelopes and distributes to the pack across the aisle.   She continues flipping and I’m amazed to see one page of just names and social security numbers (5 of them).   There are photocopies of drivers licenses, passports, credit cards, pages detailing airline gates, times, even side notes containing the type of jet for each leg of the journey.  Brochures stapled to pages of notes, print outs of hotel web pages, one page listing every US embassy in the world; it’s all rather amazing, I think.

"Well, you obviously didn’t plan this out very well," I say, as she’s packing it all back up into seatback pocket in front of her.   She starts to turn to look at me and I realize this could very well turn into something that might cause a really long conversation so I fold my arms across my chest and close my eyes.

Predictably, she doesn’t attempt a reply and I settle in for the flight wondering exactly at what point do excessive organizational skills cross the line into OCD, quite sure I will never be at risk of becoming a victim of either.