As I fight through the gathered crowd at the gate for my flight to LA I can’t help but wonder does no one read my stuff? Have they not learned in the previous 30 seconds that they aren’t supposed to do this? To wedge together like an NFL offensive front, intent on blocking anyone from boarding prior to themselves, despite the fact that they are group 7? I thought the Internet was viral?? You know a picture of a smiling monkey or a blue/not blue dress can get a hundred million hits in a day type thing. So surely my wisdom has to have spread throughout the world by now? I guess my 1 follower hasn’t done her job yet. Come on mom you can get this thing viral! Wait you do realize viral doesn’t mean the flu right??
Having survived the push through the crowd, and making it onto the plane I am struck with a fact. Half of the seats on the plane are already occupied and almost all of the overhead bin space is gone! I was group 2! How many people are in group 1?? Hey AA. If you give everyone special access it isn’t special anymore! No wonder everyone piles up at the gate. Everyone has priority access!
As I make it to my seat, I’m in luck! Still enough space to squeeze my 1 bag into the bin. I’m happy I have an aisle seat. Which means, on a full flight, I’m going to have to get up 2 more times to let people in. Thus blocking loading progress further. Here is an idea. If you are giving everyone priority access anyways, why not board as follows. Window seats first. Then middle then aisle. No one has to get up. Shimmy out of their seats and stand in front of everyone else trying to board. It seems to me it would be orderly. But I digress. They haven’t made me president of AA yet, so I will just have to do my best impression of a turnstile and get my aisle mates in as fast as possible.
As I sit there pondering who will be sitting next to me I realize it is like a game of Russian roulette. You know it, everyone who has been on a plane knows it. The bullets are fat people and kids and we all desperately want to dodge them. How many times have you been in your seat and you spot a 300lb man, walking sideways down the aisle, and you begin to panic. As you look at the middle seat open next to you. Praying. Dear god. Not him. He slows as he approaches your row, looks at your open seat. Looks at you and then CLICK! He walks on by. You won that round of Russian roulette. Someone else got the bullet!
The flip side of the Russian roulette game is the hot girl lottery. Or hot guy lottery depending on your preferences. Well wait. If there are any millennials reading this your preferences could float to all sorts of LGBTQ binary, non binary whatever, no judgement. Whatever floats your boat. But you get the idea. When you see one of them coming down the aisle you begin to preen like a peacock. Sit up straight. Straighten your shirt. Smile. Make eye contact. If you are flying Southwest Airlines (one of my least favorites because of this exact thing. You are literally dancing the dance hoping to entice them to sit next to you. When they avoid your eye contact. Looking up. Looking down whatever so as to not notice you trying to sell them on the seat next to you. It’s too much rejection. Hey if I want to be rejected by a hot girl. Let me do it the proper way by asking her out and getting turned down. I don’t need that experience 10 times in a row while waiting to take off. ). However, on AA it’s predetermined by the seating gods. Will she sit next to me or not does not depend on my salesmanship. She is stuck w me regardless! That doesn’t mean I don’t want to look good and make a good first impression! So back to my primping and preening as I see a very attractive girl coming down the aisle.
I try and make eye contact with the attractive young lady, but she is too distracted with her 3 carry on bags to see me. I shall overlook her 3 carry on bags sin because as we all know pretty girls get leniency on all rules. She is slowing. There is a chance! She looks over at the seat next to me and points! I have won the lottery! The seating gods have rewarded me! My Uber hell has been rectified. I’m going to spend 3.5 hrs sitting next to the hottest girl on the plane! As she struggles to get her 2 bags into the overhead bin I notice no one helps her. I stand up. Chivalry time. I lift the bag wedge it in there somehow and politely wave her by me into her seat. She slides past me, as I hold my stomach in trying to stand as tall as possible, and I notice she still has a bag in her hand. It’s a rather large bag to be wedging under a seat. I look down at it and to my horror realize. She is carrying a fucking dog!
She has broken too many rules! No matter how hot she is I have received the fools gold of the seat lottery! She is the Venezuelan Bolivar of currencies. A $100,000 bill and its worth $1! Well, maybe she will be nice and her dog will sleep??
God I hope so.
bgjflyer 