Seatjacked

Before I boarded my flight out of LAX friday in the wee hours of the morning the thought of my unknown flight buddies crossed my mind. I'm not sure what it is, but everytime I fly I end up sitting next to wackadoos. I laughed in my head, not this time. No trying to politely avoid conversations or sweetly declining help with my crossword, word find, etc (entertain yourselves damnit!). No at 1:40am no one would try and bother me... Sweet zzz's here I come!

I think God must really like to fuck with me- and thats fine hes blessed me above and beyond- so if I have to endure a crappy plane ride for his shits and giggles thats completely fine. You see I failed to recognize the possibility that one or both of my seat buddies could be H.O.U.S.'s. Yes, thats right. Humans of an unusual size.

There's a brief moment after you board and you are standing in the aisle gazing toward the back of the plane when the flight seems full of hope. You spot a few normal people that look like they smell good- you could work with that- or how bout those emo kids with the headphones on? They're probably super weird, but you know they won't talk to you. But then you get to your row: 15... look to the person in the window seat and say FML.

That is exactly what happened to me Friday morning. There in the window seat AND the middle seat was Bubba or maybe Skinny Mike who wasn't skinny at all. Now normally I know better than to book a middle seat (why double your odds of having forced annoying conversation for God knows how many hours?), but believe it or not by the time I booked my flight ALL of the aisle seats were taken... Damnit!

I motioned to Biggie that I had the seat next to him. He sucked in his being long enough for me to squeeze one of my ass cheeks onto the seat. I looked up at the armrest- what should have been my ally was just taunting me. It just got down to the laws of space. This man was occupying ALL of it.

Part of me wanted to say, "Hey, Bub, you wanna pay me for half my seat?" But I thought better of it- getting half a seat for four hours was better than him taking over the whole seat and crushing me with his large ass- despite what you may think I really don't want my gravestone to say "Crushed by the Man."

I survived the ordeal, albeit a bit traumatized, but it did make me think. I know the airlines do recommend that larger persons buy two seats or fly first class. Well, I propose a third option. Sell half seats for budget friendly travelers. Big people don't have to buy two whole seats and skinny people can save money.

Deal?

Xoxo. Jildo