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You may not remember me, but I remember you.
Picture it, September 3rd, 2006 United Airlines flight 6046 from Sacramento to Denver. A 6′2″ 250-something* pound caucasian male folds himself into his window seat near the middle of the plane. His knees make a solid connection with the seatback in front of him. The armrest takes up permanent residence in his right kidney, and his shoulder needs to be dislocated in order to sit facing completely forward.
You strode onto the plane confidently wearing jeans, a tee shirt and what looked like a brand new black cowboy hat. You casually tossed your carry on bag into the overhead compartment, made brief eye contact with me, then quickly FLUNG yourself into your seat directly in front of me.
I really didn’t expect you to hear the popping sound made by the transference of energy from my knees to my hips and my seat. You probably couldn’t hear the sound of my ass cheeks blowing out, or my spine being ripped out of my pelvis.
You probably did in fact hear my yelp of pain in response, but chose to ignore it.
When I regained conciousness, we were taxi-ing our way down the runway for takeoff. I slipped my sandals off, grabbed my iPod, my book, and tried to get as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.
The flight attendants came up the aisle delivering tiny packages of pretzels, and small cups of liquid refreshments. I lowered the tray table, which rests directly on my thighs, with perhaps an inch of clearance from my belly. I must remember not to exhale.
You, dear sir, have great timing. How you worked it out so that the exact moment that the stewardess handed my ginger ale** past UMB and directly over my belly, you reclined your seat, bumping her hand and spilling half a cup of ice cold liquid onto my shirt.
I really can’t fault you for that, but you can surely understand how it added to my frustration.
What happened next, however, was completely your fault. You discovered that your seat would allow you a larger range of motion than normally allowed. In fact, you mentioned to the passenger next to you “how much more comfortable it is when the seat is broken.” What you failed to realize is that you spent the entire 2 hour flight with your head in my lap.
Had you removed your cowboy hat you would have been able to look me in the eye.
Had you been listening closely you would have heard me politely asking you to raise your seat. I realize that I wasn’t speaking very loudly, but your head rest was imparing my ability to breathe.
Had you been a lighter sleeper, you would have noticed me building a chewing gum Eifel Tower on your ugly-assed cowboy hat.
* ok… probably more something, but who’s counting?
** does anyone drink Ginger Ale outside of an airplane?
