Flying Sardines

June 14, 2008
Many people have talked about the “joys” of flying these days. Traveling to Nashville from Kansas City is thankfully a short flight. We were in the air for less than two hours and my only problem when we landed was an aching elbow. You may be curious about that particular ailment. It was entirely my own fault. I have flown on Southwest many times and my family has flown on Southwest. I know that when you fly on Southwest with an “e-ticket”, you need to print a boarding pass from your home computer several hours before the flight if you have a desire to get a decent seat. I forgot to do that. In the flurry of trying to finish things up around the house before leaving it for Poland by way of Alabama, I simply forgot about the boarding pass. I knew I was in trouble when I finally remembered and tried to print one and got the message, “All online boarding passes for this flight have been completed. Please proceed to check-in to receive your boarding pass.” How scary was that? There was nothing to do but go to the airport. We checked our bags and received a slip of paper printed with the words: “THIS IS NOT A BOARDING PASS. PROCEED TO THE DESK TO RECEIVE A BOARDING PASS.” After going through security—always fun!—Elizabeth and I went to the desk and handed the agent our forms.
“Would you be willing to take a later flight for compensation?” I should have said, “yes” but I didn’t. I had told Easel we would be arriving in Huntsville by 6:00 or 6:30. Taking the later flight would have put us in Huntsville around 9:00. So, I said, “no.” Besides, I had no desire to get to Nashville by way of Chicago or to spend a couple of hours hanging out in an airport in Chicago.
We were in boarding group “C”. Of course, the plane was totally full. We were separated because there were no longer any pairs of seats left. Elizabeth found a seat close to the front. I ended up in the back of the plane and my only choice was the seat next to a large gentleman who had already claimed the armrest separating our two seats as his own. I gingerly searched for the second half of my seatbelt because it was not visible and I really could not see myself feeling around his rather imposing derriere to find it. Luckily, I quickly spotted the end of the belt sticking out between our seats! I sat through the entire flight trying to keep my left elbow from encroaching on “his” armrest and feeling his arm against my ribs. This caused my elbow to be hyper-extended through most of the flight. My seat-mate however, enjoyed a nice little nap!
I spent some time on the flight thinking about personal space and that this was an unusual occasion where I would have a man, other than a family member, in physical contact with me for nearly two hours. AND, without saying a single word! It is amazing to me that someone can maintain physical contact with another person and literally ignore their existence. I spoke to him as I was getting to my seat and received NO response. The woman to my right and I exchanged pleasantries and then proceeded to accommodate each other throughout the flight. Aren’t people interesting?