I just don’t understand people. Especially people on planes.
My husband told you the other day that we took a very spontaneous long weekend to Aruba. It took a bit of time to find flights that weren’t crazy expensive, but he managed, because he’s good at stuff like that.
So we board our American flight from Aruba to Orlando. It’s my turn to take the middle seat, so I’m in 29E and my husband’s in 29D. In front of us are 3 women sitting across. None of them are talking to each other.
The seat swap drama begins
We were in Group 5, so many people are still getting onto the plane after us. A woman comes up the aisle, stops at front of row 27 and sees all 3 seats are taken. She checks her boarding pass and says to the woman in the window seat, 29F: “You’re in my seat.”
29F says,”Oh, yes, I am. But I want to sit next to her (pointing to the woman next to her). I have the same seat as yours, in row 31. You can sit there.”
I was happy to say that aisle woman was having NO part of that.
“No, I paid extra for my seat. It cost more to sit here than in 31. I’d like my seat please.”
29F starts challenging her in every way she could. She wants to sit next to 29E. They’re the same seats. How much more did it cost? Why can’t she just sit in 31F? Now she (the friend in the middle seat) won’t have anyone to talk to, “so I guess she’ll have to talk to a stranger.”
Holding the line
And aisle woman held the line. 29F was HER seat, so please get out of it.
Apparently giving up, the woman got out of the seat in a huff and started to move back to 31. Aisle woman got herself settled, and I told her, through the crack in the seats, “Good for you! You paid for that seat, it’s your seat!”
As huffy woman starts going back to 31, another one of her travel mates, from further back in the plane, came up to her. They started conversing in another language that, serendipitously, I have a decent understanding of:
Friend: What happened?
Huffy woman: She said it was her seat and she didn’t want to move.
Friend: But they’re the same seat!
Huffy woman: I know. But she said her seat cost more(huffy woman said this with a very snotty tone)
So Huffy woman went back to (I assume) 31F.
Less than 5 minutes later, she comes back to row 29. This time she asks 29D (the aisle seat) if she’d be willing to trade for her 31F window seat. 29D tells her no, she wants to keep her aisle seat. Then 29C (the other aisle seat) says that if 29D is willing to sit in 29C, she’ll move to the window seat in 31.
Musical chairs ensues, so huffy woman can sit next to her friend. And all was well with the world.
Together, but totally silent
Meanwhile, the flight is almost 3 hours long. And I notice that the interaction between 29D (huffy woman) and 29E (friend) was non-existent. Nil. Nothing. Nada. I look through the seats and see that huffy woman is playing with her phone – looking at photos and such – with her headphones on. She’s also hogging up the arm rest that, according to plane etiquette, SHOULD belong to the friend, since she’s in the middle seat.
About an hour in, huffy woman escorts middle seat woman to the lavatory. Middle seat woman appears to be a senior citizen.
Lavatory excursion complete, they both sit in their seats. Huffy woman puts her earphones back on and now starts watching a movie.
I nudge my husband and ask what the older woman is doing (remember, I’m in a middle seat too. Since she’s directly in front of me, I can’t see her).
He says, “She’s just sitting there.”
Me: “Is she doing ANYTHING?”
Him: No. Just staring into space.
Maybe she’s rawdogging?
The non-conversation continued through the rest of the flight.
So the ONLY thing huffy woman did, for the whole flight, was escort middle seat woman to the lav. Once. That’s it. Nothing else. No conversation whatsoever. Even though one of her reasons to not leave 29F was because middle seat woman wouldn’t have anyone to talk to.
Apparently she still didn’t, since huffy woman never spoke to her, either.
What the…?
Of course, i was just an outsider looking in, and had no idea about anything having to do with middle seat woman. Did she have an issue where she needed someone to supervise her at all times? (And yet she just sat there the whole time. Never tried to get up. Didn’t do anything but sit). If not, why couldn’t huffy woman stay in row 31 and just stop by periodically to see if middle seat woman needed anything, had to use the lav, etc., instead of yelling at 29F and causing other people to move around the plane, just so she could sit next to middle seat woman…and then never interact with her for almost 3 hours?
But as an outsider looking in, at face value it was rude. And weird.
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