The Party Flight from Panama City

A couple of weeks ago, Tina & I were flying home from Florida. Since we were flying via Southwest Airlines, I made sure to check in early enough to secure decent seats on the plane. When we finally board, Tina takes a window seat and I decide to strategically take the aisle seat. If I'm lucky, everyone will pass us in an attempt avoid the dreaded middle seat. But before I even get a chance to stretch my legs, a guy walks up, and with a southern drawl, asks, "Hey, y'all mind if I take that middle seat?"

Southern people always seem so nice to me, so I say, "I'll tell you what, I'll slide over and let you have the aisle seat."

He seemed grateful and thanked me. Trust me, most people would not voluntarily sit in the middle seat. But I figured with Tina sitting next to me, we could pull up the arm rest to make things a little more comfortable. Well, before I could even buckle my seat belt, the guy leans over and says, "Excuse me, are y'all together?"

I respond, "Yes. This is my wife."

Then, he comes back with something that made me cringe....."Can I ask y'all to do me a favor?"

Now, I had already done the guy a major solid by offering him my aisle seat. But, crazy enough, he wanted more. With his young son standing in the aisle behind him, he says, "Would y'all mind switchin' seats with my wife and son? He wants to sit with his Mom & Dad."

Now, normally, I would probably say, "You're f*cking kidding me, right?"

But the guy had me over a barrel. With his son hanging out in the aisle with a sad face, I really didn't have much of a choice. If I tell the guy no, I'll look like the anti-Christ. Plus, if the kid whines all the way to Baltimore, I'll have all of the other passengers blaming me. This guy committed a major "bro faux pas" but I was stuck. What could I do? So, I said, "Sure, we'll switch. Where's your wife?"

He points to the back of the plane and his wife emerges from the very back row. As Tina & I make the transition, the guy and his wife thank us. Yeah, yeah, whatever. But as we approach the last row of seats, there's a large women who resembles Sweet Pea (the infamous stripper from the recent Jacoby Jones incident) sprawled out over the window and middle seats. She's sound asleep as I can hear her sawing logs from a few rows back. This makes me immediately want to run towards the southern guy and punch him in the head. But quickly realizing that there's probably some stupid FAA rule that prohibits that type of thing, I take a deep breath and let it go.

Figuring I got us into this mess, I told Tina that I would sit next to Sweet Pea. As I sat down, one of the woman's oversize thighs was clearly intruding on my seat. It was like deja vu all over again*. I sat down and slowly pushed my hips against her fat leg. I managed to move her an inch or two, but she was pretty much dead weight. I prepared for the inevitable backache and neck cramps that would likely kick in before we hit cruising altitude.

But there was some good news.......

Although I felt like an idiot, we looked golden to the rest of the passengers and the crew. One of the flight attendants walked over and, it her own southern drawl, said, "That was very nice of you, folks. I will get you a complimentary drink shortly." (Did I mention that I really like southern people?)

And then, the guy sitting across from Tina in the aisle seat says, "Hardly anyone else would have given up their seats. You guys are really nice. Do you drink?"

Of course, I immediately say, "Does a TSA agent grope a 90-year-old? Hell yes, we drink!"

The guy, who introduced himself as Larry, signals for the flight attendant to bring a round of drinks for us. He tells us that the drinks are on him all the way to Baltimore. All of a sudden, even with Sweet Pea breathing down my neck, things were finally looking up!

I must mention that Larry appeared to be three sheets to the wind before the plane even took off. I knew that we would get along just fine....

We knocked back several rounds and swapped funny stories. I could tell that we were getting louder because people were turning around and laughing too. Before long, Larry is giving us a humorous show-and-tell via his cell phone photos. He covered everything from the shark he recently caught in the Gulf of Mexico to his girlfriend's tramp-stamp. Despite Sweet Pea leaning on me and practically cutting off the circulation in the left half of my body, I was comfortably numb enough from the beer to not care. We were having a euphoric blast. But then, it abruptly stopped.....

Larry asked the flight attendant for another round. But instead of complying, she shocked us with a beer drinkers worst nightmare..."Sorry, I'm going to have to cut you guys off."

We couldn't believe it. We were being cut off at 30,000 feet. This would be a personal first for me.

Using Tina and myself as leverage, Larry pleaded with the flight attendant, "Aw, come on. These guys gave up their seats. They gave up their seats for a kid. You have to admit, that was a pretty decent thing to do. Can't you just give us one more round?"

When that tactic didn't work, Larry resorted to flirting. Still holding the flight attendant's attention, he said, "You know, you are really cute. I'll bet you hear that all the time. Hey Ken, isn't Crew cute?" (She was wearing a nameplate that said "CREW", so Larry assumed it was her name)

Before long, we were descending into Baltimore. And wouldn't you know it, Sweet Pea finally decided to wake up. I don't know how she possibly slept through our loud joking and storytelling. It's quite possible that she was hibernating.

I have to tell you that most flights seem like they take forever. But this particular flight, for some reason, seemed like it only took about ten minutes. What could have turned out to be a miserable experience, turned into a party. At least for three of us......;-)

kw

* http://kensmouthpiece.blogspot.com/2013/05/big-man-in-middle.html