The Guy Next To Me

The Guy Next To Me

When traveling a person must always contend with person who sits next to them on the airplane, or bus or subway, camel, elephant, etc..  Dog sled.  And in front of them, or behind.  Who this person is makes a huge difference in the comfort and dispatch of time during the journey.

You find your seat on the plane.  Whichever one it is, unless you’re a Shah or celebrity and in First Class, you’re cramped.  I’m always cramped and I’m not all that tall or big.  Still, it’s endurable.  Driving the trip would take days, flying cuts it down to hours.  A little bit of discomfort is okay to save days otherwise. 

The plane, taxies around and stuff and shortly you’re at altitude and you can pull out your laptop, get a little work done, watch a movie you downloaded -  whap!  The jerk in front of you has to recline his seat as far as it will go.  Now your laptop is crunched at … like… a thirty degree angle.  You can’t see the screen.  Looking up, you are looking at the bald spot on his head – not a pretty sight.  The thought runs through my head, when this happens, “What does he think, the people behind him disappear when he wants to unfold his belly fat?”

I have a back strategy when this happens.  I bump the back of the seat, doing this … or doing that … every time I bump it I say, “Oh I’m sorry.”  Bump, “Oh I’m sorry.” Bump, “Oh I’m sorry”.  If it’s sleep he wants, either all the periodic bumping is going to get to him, or all of my apologizing.  After a bit, they always grumble something and put their seats back in the upright position.  I can be so annoying in a super-nice way when somebody breaks the rules of travel.

The guy beside, on either side have different sets of issues.  Being in the middle seat – well, middle seat tickets should be twenty dollars less than all the other tickets.  I mean they charge you that much and more for a seat in the Emergency Row because you get more room.  They should charge less if you’re stuck between two other seats.  If you don’t make your reservation at least six months in advance, you will get stuck in the middle.  Don’t know about you, but I can’t predict my life that far ahead.  Two weeks is about my limit.  I ride the middle a lot.

The window seat; I love to look outside and down at the world below, at the clouds … unless it’s a red eye flight.  When the guy next to the window decides to pull the blind down, that upsets me.  I start to get claustrophobic.  “Put it up, put it up!  I gotta see the sky!  Whoah!”  Then the guy sitting on the aisle seat goes to sleep.  And he is always like huge.  As soon as I notice that he’s in a deep sleep, I find (for some reason) I have to take a piss.   And I mean it’s really uncomfortable and I have to go right now! 

If, perchance he wakes up, that feeling of immediacy goes away immediately.  And why, staying on this topic for a few words, why does the person by the window – who is generally a woman – always seem to want the whole can of soda.  Knowing that in ten minutes she is going to need the ladies room and both of us between her and aisle are going to have to get up and then wait standing in the aisle until she gets back.

And this is also just about when the stewards come squishing the cart back down that aisle forcing he and I all the way to the back of the airplane to turn around to go back to our seats, just about the time the plane hits turbulence and the seat belt lights go on.

On my last flight we hit some real heavy turbulence going over the Gulf of Mexico.  Why during the worst of it where so many people having to get up and head to the bathrooms?  Right after the pilot came on and said, “Stay in your seats.” ???  There was like a line of them. 

My rules for “The Guy Next To Me”:

1. If you have a weak bladder, buy an aisle seat.

2. If you have a weak bladder, DON’T drink a huge can of soda during the middle of the flight.

3. If you have a bag that won’t fit in the overhead, DON’T TRY TO STUFF IT INTO THE OVERHEAD.

4. If you’re too short to put your bag in the overhead, ask for help.

5. Don’t choose the window seat if you’re afraid to fly.  That seat is for people who LIKE to fly and look out the window.

6. If you’re 200 pounds overweight, don’t choose – or in some way, get out of – using the middle seat.

7. If you’re in the aisle seat, when the plane lands and is ready to deplane, stand up in the aisle immediately so the other people next to you can stretch a little bit.

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