Tall Guy on a Little Plane

9 May 2011
I’m back in my trailer in windy Sierra Vista after a short 10 hours at home. Home late last night from Tampa and then left this morning at 4:30 to make it here in time for work. Non- stop 4.5 hour flight from Florida that probably could have been a little more comfortable. I decided to try and book the early bird special that Southwest offers. For an extra 10 dollars they will automatically sign you in for your flight and let you board sooner than most of the people on the flight (commoners I call them). My master plan (as it always is) was to get one of 11 seats- any of the six front row or 5 emergency exit seats. Most of the time when people comment on my height I just explain, “it’s mostly neck and upper back, I have pretty stubby legs”. But even these stubby legs want as much leg room as possible. After I checked my luggage and received my boarding pass I was dismayed to see A-43 on my boarding pass. Gripes! I just paid $10 and there are at least 42 people boarding ahead of me including three people in wheelchairs (I’m not going to disparage those in a wheelchair but they are on to a pretty good thing…like going to the front of the line at Disneyland…quite the racket). After at least 40 people boarded in front of me I was pleasantly surprised to find the aisle seat in row #1wide open right next to a delightful senior couple (I didn’t ask but they could also be living in an RV park). Total score! Who walks past an open aisle seat at the front of the plane where most peoples’ legs can stretch all the way out? Answer: smart, intelligent people. Worst seat on the plane.
A couple of thoughts. The flight started out well enough. As we were taking off I put my head back and immediately dozed off (I usually have more staying power…those Sudokus don’t do themselves) but was startled awake with a jolt while we were still climbing much to the amusement of the flight attendants, who thought I had just suffered a mini seizure. Everything was great until the “permission to move about the cabin” was given. There was not a seat on that plane closer to the lavatory (rather pretentious name for an airplane bathroom) than mine was, a fact I should have realized from the start. If I had raging diarrhea or an enlarged prostate my seat would have been sweet, but since I had neither it was rather unpleasant. There was a constant and steady stream of people bumping me on their way to the port-o-potty in the sky (dang aisle seat). You would be shocked at the number of people who went into that restroom without shoes on. Yikes. As I kept tabs on the frequent flyers (yep I was keeping track of the multitude of tiny bladders out there) I wondered at the wisdom of passing out soda and water to people. I know staying hydrated is important but you are just making it uncomfortable for passenger #1 (that’s what I referred to myself as; hey I was in seat #1). Without getting into specifics I don’t even have to mention the time the flight attendants were forced to pull out the Lysol disinfectant as the loo was apparently assassinated by an inconsiderate passenger. I also unfortunately was front and center to hear the complaining from the flight attendants who really weren’t that excited dealing with such thirsty flyers (though admittedly some of them deserved the sniping……i.e . the bathroom ninja who ruined the water closet). Next time I’ll just be content with my knees up near my chin in the middle of the plane.
(I tried to squeeze as many names for bathroom as I could in this post… how many can you spot?)
(I’ll try to class up this blog with my next post and limit all of this potty talk).