Money Hater

Whenever I fly, I try to get an aisle seat. I like the aisle for all the reasons that other people like the aisle, but there is an additional reason that I prefer the aisle seat; the idiot factor.

The window seat provides about the same level of comfort as the aisle seat, but sitting by the window means that you may have to deal with the idiot factor. When dealing with other human beings the idiot factor is simply unavoidable, but there are ways to minimize it and sitting in the aisle seat is one of them.

At some point during the flight (my flight on Friday was 4 hours) someone is going to get up and want to get out, and the person sitting in the aisle seat is going to be inconvenienced in some fashion. They will likely have to get up, and may have to shuffle some items (laptop, work papers, etc.) or even be woken up. People getting up is part of air travel, and having to move is part of being in the aisle seat. I understand this and recognize the right of those next to me to get up whenever they damn well please. Unfortunately, my years on this planet have taught me that many people are not as enlightened.

I do not have any hard data, but there is definitely a portion of the population that does not understand the responsibilities and requisite etiquette that come with sitting in the aisle seat. They get miffed when they have to move, and may even express their miffedness with a facial expression or a sigh or other form of disapproving body language. I do not want to have to see this, for it will cause me to (correctly) loathe and wish ill upon them and theirs.

I have no interest in seeing yet more evidence of how insufferable many humans are. I see enough of that at the poker table. I would much rather give a genuine smile that says, “It’s OK. No problem. I understand what is required of me in this aisle seat and have no problem getting up to accommodate you” to the person who sheepishly asks if they can sneak by me, than to have to wish that the plane goes down in a fiery wreck just to spite the asshole who doesn’t want to stop watching the Scrubs marathon that he downloaded onto his ipod.