How To Get Ignored On An Airplane

How? Sit in a window seat with a big ole’ kindly fat person in the middle seat. He was friendly, we chatted when he first sat down and he was pre-emptively apologizing for snoring and invited me to nudge him if it was too disruptive. No, no problem, it drowns out the crying babies and it’s like white noise. Unfortunately, no flight attendants could see me or were willing to service my needs on the other side of a snoring and heaving wall of flesh. I waved my arms, even. Cheese plate to nibble on for the six hour flight? Cup of water to stay hydrated? Nope, can’t bother the motherfucking fat guy. At least I get to look out the stupid window I'm smashed up against as he rolled over onto me, snoring. The roll of flesh sticking out under his forearm is pinning my arm to my side. He is leaking over into my seat from over and under the armrest.

When I was a kid, fairness was very important to me. I had ideas about fairness when it came to being in public and sharing seating, like how you were only entitled to 50% of an armrest. At the movies, I would want glass partitions to slam down between the seats so that nobody could take up more than their allotted 50% of space with their feet, knees or arms. When I sat down, if I wanted to use the armrest, I would calculate an invisible straight line down the middle of the armrest and position my arm very carefully so that I didn’t infringe on the other half that I wasn’t entitled to use. Now, I mostly dangle my legs over the other side and stuff the seats next to me with my belongings so nobody will sit next to me. Can’t do that on an airplane. I love going places, but I hate flying.

I just spent most of my week in Seattle at a conference and discovered two things:

1)   Someone has stolen my memoir title

2) This is about my sixth visit and I want to live in Seattle

I’m job-hunting as we speak, but I have to make sure it’s important enough to my career that I can talk my husband into coming along, so this great ad I’ve answered to be the person who rolls the sticky wand over your clothes when you leave the stray cat sanctuary probably isn’t going to do it.