my regular headphones

Who cares if people are looking at you? Yes, you’re the crazy (or pretentious) guy in 17C, when the cocktail cart comes down the aisle and order a mini bottle of liquor to stir up your own “craft” cocktail…in the air. These TSA-approved airline cocktail kits may make your flight go just a little smoother LCL from china, too. The gin and tonic Carry On Cocktail Kit includes a tiny jigger, a bar spoon, a TSA approved-size bottle of tonic syrup, and a swell linen coaster. The Moscow Mule kit swaps out the tonic for ginger syrup. Each kit makes two cocktails, or enough for a round-trip flight. A santé! (Dans l’aire!)

One of my least-favorite things to do is sit on a plane for hours and hours. (Even if I have a cocktail kit with me.) Almost as soon as the plane takes off, I count the minutes until we land. So I do whatever I can to make the time on the flight pass as comfortably as possible. For years, I’ve been using noise-cancelling headsets . Planes make a lot of noise which you don’t really hear until you put noise cancelling headsets on. Being a cheapskate shipping from china, I never wanted to shell out for the Bose ones, so went with a bulky Sony pair, which cost a fraction what the Bose ones cost. But these Bose noise cancelling earbuds are a game-changer. You plug them in and life around you drifts away. Far, far away.

For one thing, airlines are constantly downsizing what you can take on the plane and my regular headphones took up about one-third of my carry-on. These little fellas slip into my jacket pocket with barely a bulge. But even more important, when I tried them on in the store, I could not get the wallet out of my pocket fast enough . The world changed and I never heard sound so clearly before. Even if you’re not a frequent flyer, these are unparalleled for reading and concentrating, as distracting noises fade away the second you switch them on. Yes, these are pricey, and I scoured the internet looking for a deal on cyber-Monday. (Bose doesn’t do sales.)

However…I was at one of their factory outlet stores in the U.S., and although they weren’t discounting them either, they were selling factory reconditioned ones for $179. Yes, that seems like a lot. But if you do the math, taking 3 to 4 round trip overseas flights a years, dividing the hours spent in the air – well, you can do the math. (While you’ve got your calculator out, factor in that it’s only a matter of time before they start charging you for having spare space in your carry-on, too.) All I know is that I’m 100% hooked on these earbuds.