Guess which story is true:
Flying Coach
I fly a lot. I fly enough for the flight attendants to be put on notice that I will be on the plane. Wherever I am sitting they come find me and make sure I have whatever I need. If I end up in coach they find me and apologize for the inconvenience. Quite often when I make a last minute booking and I get what’s left and I end up in coach. Here are three coach flight stories. Guess which one really happened.
Flight #1:
I am trying to catch flight back home from DC and I am running late. Being late for a flight is not unusual. I have lost count of the number of times that I have had to run down the breezeway, step aboard the plane and have the flight attendants close the door and announce, “You know that you just made the flight.” This is obvious to me because I am on the good side of the closed door. Anyhow I am on the plane headed for my seat. It is towards the middle of the plane in coach. It’s the last seat on the plane and it’s a middle seat. In the window seat is an average size person but sitting in the aisle seat is a guy so large that he needs not one but two seat belt extenders to be able to latch his belt. I start looking for another seat. Unfortunately there isn’t one so I ask Jaba the Hut if he wouldn’t mind standing up so I can get to my seat. The guy the sighs like I am inconveniencing him. So I sit down and put the armrest down. I do this to better define the boundary between my coach seat and his. Then the unusually large man reaches in and lifts the armrest and quickly sits down. Now for a large person this guy was fast, like NFL football player fast. But I am faster and I flip the armrest back down. The guy lands on the armrest with all of his weight and it hurts. I know it hurts because he begins to scream. He’s not just screaming in pain, he is yelling that I hurt him. This gets the attention of the flight attendant who comes racing down the aisle. The ensuing conversation goes like this:
Flight Attendant: Sir, you are delaying the departure of this flight.
Me: I’m sorry but I’m in my seat with my seat belt on and I am ready to depart.
Flight Attendant: I am not going to tell you again but you are delaying the departure of this flight by not allowing the gentleman to take his seat.
Me: Excuse me but I am not keeping Gigantor from taking his seat. I am keeping him from taking my seat. My seat is right here between these armrests. His seat is between those armrests and if he can’t fit between those armrests maybe he should sit somewhere else.
Flight attendant: This is the last seat on the plane there is nowhere else for him to sit.
Me: Maybe he should get off the plane.
Flight Attendant: Sir if you continue to delay the departure of this flight we will have to remove you from the plane.
This is when I started to get upset.
Me: Now wait a minute. I paid for this seat, the whole seat and I happen to know for a fact that "The Incredible Bulk" didn’t pay for a seat and a half. How do I know? It’s simple. There is no such thing as a seat and a half fare class.
At this point a very nice lady joins in and offers to let her three-year-old sit next to the blue whale and let me take the kids seat. I can’t leave well enough alone and respond, ”Aren’t you afraid that Shrek here will mistake your child for a gingerbread cookie and eat her?”
Seating arrangements were corrected and we left two minutes later.
Flight #2:
I am on an early morning flight headed home. It’s a 6:00 AM departure and I am in coach. This time I have an aisle seat. It’s an aisle seat in the emergency exit row. Extra legroom and these seats recline.
About thirty minutes into the flight the person sitting directly behind me begins to kick the back of my seat. Usually it’s a fidgeting child whose parents are totally oblivious to the behavior of their child. Not this time. This time it’s an adult that’s kicking my chair so I turn around to tell the passenger to knock it off. As soon as I get a look at her I realize that the kicking is not intentional. This woman is in the middle of a seizure. The woman sitting next to the lady in the middle of the convulsions looks like she might be her sister and the this exchange begins:
Me: Does she have epilepsy?
Sister: (Yelling) - No, she got the shugga!
Me: Did she have breakfast this morning?
Sister: No, we was runnin late.
Me: Did she take her insulin?
Sister: I think she did.
At this point the convulsing woman falls into the aisle with her head next to my feet and the flight attendants come running. One attendant is telling the other to go tell the pilot that we have an in air emergency. I tell them to get some sugar in the woman’s mouth. The attendant starts arguing with me that they have to inform the captain that they have an inflight emergency and I am insisting that they get some sugar. Then I grab the message carrying attendants arm and say:
Me: There’s no emergency.
Errand Boy: Sir I have to inform the Captain that we have an inflight emergency.
Me: Listen to me please, the emergency has passed.
Errand Boy: (With a confused look on his face) She’s going to be OK now?
Me: Nothing can hurt her now. She’s gone.
When the convulsions stopped, the person stoped foaming at the mouth and her pupils got as big as quarters, it was game over. That’s right she died right there. I had to spend the balance of the flight with a deceased person lying on the floor next to me with a cloth napkin from first class draped over her face. No bonus miles were awarded.
Flight #3:
My wife, my daughter and I are returning from a skiing trip. I get upgraded regularly so on the first leg I let my daughter have the first class seat and I sit in coach with my wife. No issues in coach other than a small child kicking the back of my wife’s seat. On the second leg my wife takes the first class upgrade and I sit in coach with my daughter. This is where it starts to go south.
The flight is overbooked and I hold a window and an aisle seat. The middle seat is empty. Every seat in the plane is full except for this one middle seat. That’s when I see her. The EMT’s are bringing an elderly lady onto the plane in a wheelchair. They get to my aisle and the EMT’s politely ask me to move over and let the woman have the aisle seat. The woman isn’t just elderly she’s obviously suffered a stroke because she is paralyzed on the left half of her body. To make things worse she doesn’t speak any English. She only speaks Spanish. I am a decent person so I move over and the EMT’s put the woman in the aisle seat. As soon as we take off it hits me. The old lady has shit herself. I have to spend the next fifty minutes trapped in my seat next to a non-English speaking stroke victim that has just shat herself.
We get to the gate and the plane starts to unload the passengers. My daughter and I are sitting in row six which is 3 rows behind first class. We are trapped behind stroke lady and have to wait for the entire plane to unload and the EMT’s to come get stroke lady. Just then my wife calls on the cell. She wants to know if we are coming and I say, “I am going to stay a little longer, I like it here, please go get the luggage.” Then I hang up.
Which story do you think is true? Would you believe that all three happened and these accounts are no exaggeration? Coach sucks, fly first class at any cost.
