Y’all, I try to be understanding on planes, I really do. But the woman I was sitting next to on my most recent Southwest flight totally drove me up the wall. I never said anything to her and my eye rolling and sighing were all done 100% internally. But OMG, I wanted to say or do something “out loud.”
Before I even start…I realize it’s possible this woman had never flown before. Or hadn’t flown in a long, long time. Maybe she was a nervous flyer. Or had problems with following instructions. I dunno. But I’ve been on this earth long enough to know that you can be empathetic with someone and still be majorly annoyed by them at the very same time.
That’s where I was with this woman.
The flight
Anyway, I was flying from AUS back home to MCO. I had gotten slot B35 when I checked in (ugh!), so I used the Upgraded Boarding option. And then I had spot A7. I grabbed an aisle seat in row 4, and some other woman took the window seat. We had the empty middle seat between us, but the flight attendants said repeatedly that it was a full flight, so we figured someone’s butt would eventually be in the seat.
She sits next to me
And a butt in the seat there eventually was. I don’t know her name but I’ll call her Beverly. She and her husband, who I’ll call Chuck, had been the very last 2 people to board the plane (that alone tells you they probably didn’t understand Southwest’s system for checking in). They had gone alllll the way to the back of the plane, looking for 2 empty seats next to each other, even as the FAs were telling the last handful of people to just sit in the first empty seat they saw. Bev and Chuck apparently didn’t find any seats back there, so they wandered back to the front of the plane. Chuck sat…somewhere. Beverly sat in the empty middle seat in my row.
Bev had her (cloth) carry on bag and her light grayish blue pocketbook with her. All of the overheads were full, of course, so she just stuffed her big bag to the right of her feet and kept her pocketbook in her lap.
The “rule follower” inside me was fuming because you’re not supposed to have anything in your lap during takeoff, and having anything in the area where your lower legs go, particularly during takeoff and landing, is a safety issue. How the flight attendant didn’t catch it when he did his final check before takeoff – that was beyond me.
Then she had problems putting her seatbelt on. It wasn’t an issue where her size was a problem; the seatbelt fit…she just didn’t know how to fasten it. The woman in the window seat graciously helped her.
Happily for all of us, Beverly fell asleep soon after takeoff.
Not long after we reached cruising altitude and the seatbelt sign went off, I went to use the lavatory at the front of the plane.
Now, I had already joked around with (who turned out to be) the head flight attendant at the front galley, when I was boarding. I had suggested to her I should take the bulkhead seat (remember, I was the 7th person on the plane; 4 of the 6 bulkhead seats were still available) so I could get allllll that legroom (spoiler, for anyone who’s new to our blog: I’m a “fun sized” 4’6″ tall; I never need leg room), so I figured she might recognize me. And she did. So I let her know that the woman in 4B had left her bag next to her feet, and her other bag on her lap during takeoff, so they might want to double-check before landing, to make sure they were in a safer spot.
And yes, when it comes to safety, I’m going to be a tattletale. Anyway, the FA thanked me.
She wakes up
Most of the rest of the flight was otherwise nothing to speak of, since Beverly was still asleep. But once she woke up, those last 45 minutes or so? That’s when the fun started.
The woman would. not. stop. moving.
She marched in place.
She leaned from side to side.
She rubbed her arms, like one would do when they’re cold.
She wiggled in her seat.
And best of all, after she finished the bottle of Coke she had pulled from her bag, she crackled it, nearly nonstop.
It was like sitting next to a 4-year-old, but a big one, since Beverly was, I would guess, somewhere between 50 and 70.
Drove me up a wall.
As we began our descent, the head flight attendant followed up on our earlier conversation and checked that everyone’s bags were stowed safely, and she got Beverly to smash her big bag and pocketbook into the space under the seat in front of her.
The second we landed – and I mean THE SECOND we landed, Bev took her seatbelt off and had her pocketbook in her lap again…even though we were at MCO, which meant there were still 47 miles of taxiing until we got to the gate.
We had landed in the middle of one of Central Florida’s daily monsoons so, of course, we had to wait for the storm to pass before they pulled the luggage. Since I live in Central Florida, I knew that was going to be an extended wait (turned out to be 75 minutes), so when I got to the carousel, I grabbed a seat on one of the nearby benches.
And who winds up sitting next to me? Bev and Chuck, of course. Oh, and BTW, Chuck was a manspreader. Big time manspreader. Yeah, I put a stop to that soon enough (here’s how).
The storm eventually stopped and the luggage started coming out, so I bid my silent goodbye to Bev and Chuck, who were on their way to their Carnival Cruise (they were planning on taking an Uber to the Port. Hope they knew that was going to set them back about $75 before tip – IF there was no surge pricing going on).
I’ve had some annoying seatmates before, but Beverly definitely took the cake!
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
Want to sponsor a post, write something for Your Mileage May Vary, or put ads on our site? Click here for more info.
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and sign up to get emailed notifications of when we post.
Whether you’ve read our articles before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.