Strangers On A Plane

Air travel has it's conveniences. Instead of spending 18 hours in a car of screaming kids, you can load  up the family in a 737 and get started on that Disney vacation in a couple of hours. However, flying the friendly skies can also have it's inconveniences.. On a recent flight to San Diego, I had a front row seat to one of them.....

On Southwest airlines, there's always a jostling of the seats. Because of their open seating policy, the first two-thirds of the passengers will hustle to secure those coveted window and aisle seats. They eventually give way to the final  (aka the "C Group") who inevitably board the plane with a look of utter despair in their eyes. On a recent flight,  I sat in my aisle seat (secured by a bargain price of $15 via an Early Bird check-in) and watched the crowd look to and fro in hopes of spotting a window seat that has somehow flown under the radar. Unfortunately, these hopes almost always lead to disappointment.

As the crowd moves in, a woman in the back of the plane decides that she wants to take a seat near the front of the plane. I guess it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind? Nonetheless, her attempt to move to her new seat is headed off by the disgruntled C-group. Keep in mind, the aisle on  his plane is very narrow. Unless you're a super-model with an eating disorder, you're probably not going to make it down the aisle too easily.  So, squeezing past another full size adult is virtually impossible. But the woman is determined. She desperately tries to squeeze by an oncoming man but it's quite obvious that it ain't happening. The man, already pissed because of the middle seat that awaits him, asks the woman, "Where the hell are you trying to go??"

The woman points to a seat about ten rows behind him towards the front of the plane. The guy rolls his eyes and then turns sideways and presses his pelvis into the head of sleeping passenger in the aisle seat in front of me. The woman turns sideways in the opposite direction and attempts to squeeze past the guy. With her ass firmly wedged up against the man's ass, the woman wiggles in a futile attempt to make it past him. Keep in mind, the woman had one of those large Kim-Kardishain type asses.

Meanwhile, after practically being sexually assaulted by repeated pelvic thrusts, the sleeping passenger inevitably wakes up. That last thrust to the head must have been too much to absorb. Looking as if he just took an overhand right from Mike Tyson, the guy sits in his seat and shakes out the cobwebs. I heard him mumble a subtle "WTF" as he rubbed his eyes and tried to figure out what just happened.

The whole scene was like watching an old episode of Seinfeld. And although I was genuinely enjoying the pre-departure comedy show,  I was starting to worry that it would delay our flight. The man finally puts an end to the nonsense and says to the woman, "Look, this isn't going to work. You need to let me get by so I can get to my seat for Christ's sake!"

Instead of simply turning around and walking to the back of the plane, the woman tries to squeeze into the aisle seat directly across from me. The problem here was that there was a person sitting in the seat. But again, the woman was determined and would not be deterred. The seated passenger leaned into the the person on the middle seat in order to give Miss Inconsiderate a little space. She stayed in this position until the rest of the C-group boarded. The poor passenger would probably need a chiropractor after staying that cramped position for so long. I'm not a violent person but I would have probably throat-punched the woman if she infringed on my space like that.

Eventually, all of the C-group boarded the plane and the woman was finally able to move freely through the aisle. After all of the hassle and inconvenience, she finally settles into a middle seat next to a guy who I assumed to be her husband. All of this effort for a middle seat....are you kidding me?

After what seemed like a brief eternity, the plane finally entered the sky. And can you guess who the first person who needed to get up an use the bathroom? Yep, we were barely in the air for 15 minutes and the woman was walking into the on-coming direction of an approaching flight attendant. The flight attendant gave a subtle roll of her eyes and a forced smile as the woman squeezed past her....

kw