     | september 10, 2010
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| september 10, 2010
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A Row Of Her Own Catherine Price -- 01/10/2007  I realize that it might seem strange that I start strategizing about airplane seats from the moment I book my flight. And it is, perhaps, selfish to want five seats to myself for the price of one coach ticket. But I cannot function without eight hours’ sleep, and have a physical inability to doze when not in a horizontal position. When I fly, I want a row to myself.On my last long trip—an eleven-hour flight from South Korea to California—I was optimistic. At check-in, I’d convinced the attendant to place me in an empty five-seat row. Seven minutes till the doors closed, I was still alone. To be safe, I sat one seat in from the aisle and pulled up both my armrests, asserting my dominance over the seats to my right and left—an old trick, but one that works. Then, carry-on bags strewn territorially around me, I took deep breaths and tried to slow my heart rate as I watched the plane board. There were three minutes left till door closure when I saw her, a woman about my age struggling down the aisle with her carry-on bags. She looked more nervous than the other passengers, and was acting, I realized, the same way I do when I board long-haul flights: Instead of making eye contact with people, her gaze only stopped where no one was sitting. She was seat-scouting. And she was assigned to my row. When she saw me, her expression hardened. She knew exactly what I was doing with my arm rests, and she wasn’t going to let me get away with it. Without looking directly at me, she sat down in the aisle seat three down from me and—in a move both passive aggressive and brilliant—put her carry-on bag underneath the seat to her left to claim it. Two can play at this game, her actions seemed to say. Yes, I thought, my competitive streak ignited. But only one can win. Her next move was predictable: she popped her head up above her seat like a periscope, and swiveled so that she could see the back of the plane, checking to see if there were any empty rows. It’s what every seat-snatcher hopes their opponent will do—if she found a row and left, my victory would be assured. When she grabbed her row and disappeared a few rows behind me, it seemed almost too easy. “Well,” I said out loud, in the same smarmy, self-satisfied tone as Edward Rooney, the principal in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. “Looks like I won that little game.” But the woman had failed to observe one of the cardinal rules of seat snatching: don’t get caught by a flight attendant. They’ll send you back. And so she returned, slinking, still refusing to look at me. Frustrated, I turned a page in my magazine, refusing to look up. The plane prepared for take-off. Once we were in the air, each of us waited for seat-snatchers’ unofficial starting gun: the ding of the fasten seatbelt sign. Despite it only being 6 p.m., I unbuckled my seatbelt and threw myself across three seats, feet dangling aggressively into the fourth. The woman had no noticeable reaction, calmly reading a novella, but inside I knew she was fuming. This didn’t matter, because it was clear to me that I’d beaten her. A half an hour later, feeling cocky, I sat up for dinner. end of page 1 [ 1 ] read more ... [ 2 ] |
