Just Take a Car Instead

I have just stepped off a five hour red-eye from California, and now realize that I hate plane rides, and not just because I am incapable of speedily collecting my luggage from the security belt while hopping in my socks on the dirty, dirty floor. What I really hate — and this may surprise you — are the people on the planes.

At the last minute, I had switched my seat to row 18, because there were two empty seats in the row. Although my flight to California had only had myself and a guy in the window seat, I was greatly disturbed at how the guy spread all his stuff over the empty seat and in the compartment in front of the empty seat. Also, though he waited to use the bathroom until I happened to also get up, he was gone for unaccountably long times which I found suspicious.

This flight, though, was nearly full. And what I didn’t realize until too late was that if I picked a row with two empty seats in it, I was more likely to sit with a couple than someone travelling alone and willing to cram into the middle seat. The couple next to me arrived separately. After I’d sat down, a man walked down the aisle, stood beside me, and waited. I understood this to mean he needed to get into my row, so I stood up and let him in.

About ten people later, a woman came down the aisle and gestured toward the middle seat. I stood up to let her in, then sat back down and buckled my seat belt. Three seats, all filled: I wouldn’t have to go anywhere for a while.

The woman, who began talking to the man, stood up and struggled out of her coat. I began to sense I might have to move. She took her husband’s coat. She stood up, and I unbuckled my seat belt and got up again so she could stuff the coats in an overhead bin. Then she sat down.

During the flight, I got up to use the bathroom twice. The people next to me didn’t seem to have to use the bathroom at all. And then, When we were within thirty minutes of landing, the pilot told everyone that this was their last chance to “stretch their legs,” meaning, of course, to hit the can.

The people next to me continued to sit there.

Finally, just when I had put away my book in preparation for landing, the woman unbuckled her seat belt. I knew what that meant. I unbuckled my seat belt and stood in the aisle so she could get by. Her husband looked at her, and continued to sit in his seat.

She returned a few minutes later and I got up again. She sat down. She buckled her seat belt. I sat down. I buckled my seat belt. And then — oh, the horror — the woman whispered something to the man. She spoke in a language I could not identify, but I could figure out what she was saying.

“Dear,” she was whispering, “Don’t you think you want to get up and use the bathrooom?”

He pondered this for a while, and then unbuckled his seat belt. His wife started to unbuckle her seat belt, but he waved her back down into her seat and squeezed by her. I hurriedly unbuckled my seat belt and jumped up, because from the man’s body language, he was perfectly willing to squeeze his personal areas right in my face. Both he and his wife, I might mention, were large enough so that he was falling into her seat, and she had made my JetBlue DirectTV armrest control inaccessible for most of the flight.

He came back and I got up, he squeezed by, I sat down, I buckled my seat belt. This was surely the last of my worries, I thought. I mean, there wasn’t even much left of the flight.

The plane taxied to the gate. The flight attendent made the usual announcement: “Please stay seated with your seat belt fastened until the captain has turned off the fasten seat belt sign,” which was accompanied by the usual sounds of seat belts being unfastened.

Usually, as soon as the fasten seat belt sign goes off, I jump up to get my carry-on luggage. But because I had more than an hour layover in an airport with very close gates, and because I was seated in row 18, I stayed seated when the people toward the front of the plane began to jump up.

The people next to me, however, had places to be, so they stood up immediately. This would not have been a problem except that neither of them were in an aisle seat. So I had to get up and stand in the aisle while the woman pulled their coats from the overhead bin, and both began to put them on. I had intended to sit back in my seat since the line still hadn’t moved out of the plane, but the man put his briefcase in my seat.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I would like to sit.”

“You want to sit?” the man asked, disbelievingly.

“Yes,” I said firmly. I motioned for him to step the rest of the way into the aisle so I could sit down again.

The people left, finally, and I was relieved. People are often in a rush, and I myself had often been in a rush to get off a plane, but if you’re in a rush, get an aisle seat so you don’t have to knock over any small Asian girl who might be trying to finish her book, thus renewing her hatred of people.

And I’m not even going to get into the Hasidic Jew who traveled with what appeared to be four wives and four small children, all in black hose and plain black shoes.

Or the guy on the next flight who boarded the plane, carefully stowed his bag in the overhead compartment and then, ignoring all the free space around his bag, just as carefully shut the door on the bin as though it were his own personal luggage space.

Or even the skinny Japanese girl who walked down the aisle, paused just long enough by me so that I noticed she had stopped at my row, and then plunged into my row without giving me a second to stand up to let her in. Granted, one of her legs was about the size of one of Anna Nicole’s arms during the Trim Spa years, and she almost made it past me without me having to stand up, except that one of her purses got hooked on my knee.

Posted by: ssjane | February 13, 2007 | 4:31 pm
Posted in: This Life