My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places

Sit Back and Relax

There is a special room in hell where the flames are extra hot and you must sleep sitting straight up. The sign on the door says: Reserved for People Who Reclined Their Seatbacks the Entire Flight. Most of us understand the discomfort we are inflicting on the poor schmo behind us and try to limit our reclining for the lights-out portion of the flight. If everyone leans back together, in the manner of a synchronized, unattractively upholstered Esther Williams swim routine, then no one is unfairly crowded.

I had a seatback diva in front of me last week. We were barely airborne, and there she was in my lap. Using my computer would now entail making a slit in my belly flab and inserting the front half of the keyboard inside me, so that the bottom row of letters were rendered inaccessible and I would have to make do without the words banana, vixen, balaclava and many other colorful favorites.

Defeated, I tried to watch the little TV mounted in the seatback in front of me. Alas, the screen was so close to my face that my eyes were crossing. Emeril had become a set of perfectly choreographed twin Emerils, which was one or possibly two more Emerils than I could handle. In desperation, I turned to my complimentary copy of the Sky Mall catalog and began to read. A mail-order company was selling “the Most Compact Washing Machine in the World,” enabling, I don’t know, Keebler elves to do laundry in their tree. “Tiki Head Tissue Box Dispenses Tissue Through the Nose!” another ad reported excitedly.

“Who would buy this?” I said to the man in the middle seat, but he was busy waving down a flight attendant. “Miss?” He was holding up his knees. “Is there room in the overhead bin for these?”

We hit a pocket of turbulence and Bloody Mary mix slopped onto the chinos of the man next to me. I pointed to the Most Compact Washing Machine in the World. “You need this,” I said. The man did not smile. His expression was just like the Tiki Head with tissues up its nostrils, displeased and clearly embarrassed about the situation yet resolutely stoic.

More and more, you must board a plane like a general going to war. You must constantly defend your turf—your wee, airless kingdom. The occupier of the next seat will make his move upon your armrest the moment your vigilance flags. You will return from the bathroom to find an elbow planted in the little vinyl peninsula where your people once roamed free.

The battle for armrest dominance has grown ever more intense in the era of the laptop computer. The airplane seat—designed to be a chair, and never very good at it—has now been asked to perform double duty as an office. Soon people will be bringing fitness equipment and hobby craft aboard, and the company that makes the elfin washers will need to get started on looms and rowing machines.

Complex rules apply to the space beneath your seat, for it belongs, technically, to the person behind you. Not long ago, I was on a transcontinental flight when I was awakened by the woman behind me. “Excuse me?” She was holding a plastic juice cup. “Excuse me? This is coming in my section.” I had put my empty cup under my seat and it had slid backward, crossing an imaginary line in the carpeting. She was peeved. Her eyes were squinty and her nostrils were flaring, as though about to dispense tissues through the nose.

People were staring, so I took the cup. Later that night, a pantyhosed foot made a stealth assault on the back of my right armrest. It was her: the Juice Cup Border Patrol.

“Excuse me?” I nudged the foot ungently. “This is coming in my section.”

Several hours went by without incident. I was beginning to drift off, when I heard a driving, tinny noise: ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch… The woman behind me had mobilized the most fearsome weapon in the modern airplane arsenal: the Overly Loud Headphones.

I waved my hot towel in surrender.