Everybody is talking about how excited they are to go back to travelling once the pandemic ends.
That’s all I hear when I run into friends. Everywhere I go everyone I talk to constantly says I can’t wait to take a cruise or go to an all inclusive.
I am also extremely excited about travel. The one thing I’m not excited about, is getting on a plane.
The reason is, that darn middle seat.
Nobody wants to sit in it. We pay extra to NOT sit in it. It’s the cheap seat. The kids seat. It’s time to ban it.
I hope the one thing this pandemic ends forever is that middle seat. It should be strapped down so nobody can ever sit in it.
I was once travelling from Halifax to Ottawa when a huge man who happened to be a boxer sat in the middle seat. I was in the window seat. This guy immediately fell asleep and snored to the entire flight. Which meant I could not pee. At one point, I considered trying to use a water bottle, but I would have had to pull my jeans down. When I say snore, I am not talking a light little snore. This was a huge snore. I’m surprised the pilot did not come back and put a muzzle on his face. How this man fit in the middle seat was a mystery.
Another time this kindly old lady sat in the middle seat next to me from Vancouver to Edmonton. She was all of 100 pounds, but she would fart like a Clydesdale. Then she would look around pretending it wasn’t her. Every half hour, like clockwork, this woman would shit her pants. When she finally stood up, I had to check to see if there was a hole in the seat. It smelled like she ate her young. When the plane finally landed, I felt like asking her, for the love of God woman what did you eat?
I once flew from Ottawa to St. John’s with a woman who had so much perfume on that she not only gave me a migraine she cleared up the cold sore I had in the corner of my mouth.
On one flight a lady in the middle seat had air sickness. She not only threw up all over my pants and purse, but she had explosive diarrhea. Thank God we weren’t on a train because I would have thrown her out a window.
Then there’s the people who are adamant that you will talk to them whether you like it or not. I once had a guy explain his version of his messy divorce to me for four hours! By the time he landed I wanted to contact his wife and congratulate her on her good decision.
Then there’s the drunks. A guy got on a flight in Halifax to St. John’s completely inebriated. The flight attendant kept serving him booze. Twice he put his hand on my knee and once he tried to kiss me. He finally passed out. When he woke up, he kept complaining about a pain in his groin. Let’s leave it at that.
I’m not even going to get into the amount of people who do not wash their bodies before they get on a flight. Or the men coming back from vacation wearing flip-flops with yellow long dirty toenails. Or people who take off their shoes and let their sticky feet air out. Or try to read whatever you’re reading.
I also can’t help but wonder how many people with head lice are sitting next to me. How about those people with flu symptoms who constantly sneeze all over you? Then it’s those people who have to have their elbows in the air while they are eating. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had some strange man’s elbow hit me in the tit while I’m trying to enjoy my 3 ounces of dried chicken breast.
We are also protective of our personal space now after living through a pandemic. So, I think collectively as a group we need to unite and ban the middle seat on airplanes.
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