Seatmates

Andy Rooney I am not; but this is close.

With time, I have developed preferences when doing specific things: I like silent masseuses for example. Airline travel, for me, is an opportunity to catch up on reading. As it evolved, Kernie and I often get aisle seats across from each other. Necessary communication is possible but chitchat is all but impossible. I can focus—I get my stuff done on airplanes. The seat mate asking twenty questions is to be avoided but occasionally there is an exception—but not usually. The problem has eased lately because my observation is that most passengers don’t particularly want to engage someone who looks like they are seventy years old.

Works for me…….

My grandchildren find this incomprehensible but for much of my life, there were smoking sections in airplanes. When I was a high school student, I went by air to my brother’s wedding in LA. My mother booked seats in the rear of the plane where she could have a drink (it was 5:00 somewhere) and smoke a few cigarettes for the thirty minute flight. We shared the space with many other smokers—and drinkers.

Once in a while, I would be the chatty seat mate. My family was flying from Seattle to Puerto Vallarta and we had seats in the rear where smoking was permitted. The three girls were in front of me in non-smoking and I sat next to an ancient campesino (that was a first impression based on my history in Salinas and his skin quality—it turned out he was a horse rancher of some means) dressed in western finery, smoking Marlboros and ordering Scotch. I found that by engaging him in conversation, he lit up less often and so, I embarked on an exercise in Spanish that at times was beyond me. He was very patient. His wife had renal failure and was on dialysis. We explored the ins and outs of that experience. He helped me with my grammar as I reviewed my life and I learned the word, rincon (corner) when describing a specific place to find in Puerto Vallarta. I enjoyed the conversation very much even as my initial motivation was one of self protection. My strategy mostly worked; I still smelled like smoke when debarking.

Smoking in the air finally became a thing of the past. Kernie learned tobacco could still be intrusive. She flew to San Diego solo, and had a seat in the very last row, bathrooms at her back. She had a middle seat. On each side, there were men in suits weighing over three hundred pounds. For comfort, the aisle suit pulled up the arm rest. Kernie put it back down. He glowered. Both men committed what Kernie has since called, “man spread.” So as to air themselves, their heels touched but their knees spread lateral. She was encircled in suit knees. She asked the flight attendant if there were any other seats available. There were not. Once in the air, the aisle suit pulled out an empty can of coke. He occasionally brought it to his lips. Being a Pasadena girl, it took her awhile to realize what she was seeing. He was chewing tobacco and spitting into the can when it, what, aged? soured? got too gooey? Once more, she checked in with the flight attendant who now exhibited sympathetic body language but, no, there were no open seats. The flight ended and of course, the exiting passengers could not move more slowly. The suits preceded her out of the plane. As Kernie came to the exit, the flight attendant came forward. “I have something for you; you were a very good sport and I want to show our appreciation.” She handed Kernie an unopened bottle of wine. It was a beautiful gesture, not to be repeated because Kernie has become very careful about selecting her seats, always with an escape plan.

Bad seat mates can drive one to irrationality. On a cross country flight, just as the seatbelt light was turned off, a man of large stature from Alabama took a deep breath and fully reclined his seat with no warning. My knee got pinched and I let out a shout and forcefully struck the back of his seat. He got up, turned to me and said, “What the fuck?” To his credit, he saw the problem and sat adjusting the seat two degrees. I was seething in the moment but realized, the design of our seats was really the problem, not the behavior of the man in front of me. No seat room and adjustable seats equals pinched knees for those of us taller than five foot eight. I have yet to find a way to pay the airlines back for this “work flow.” Like Kernie, I do my best to find a seat when booking to make this problem unlikely even though it sometimes means paying more. I also do not recline my seat as for me, it does not really help me relax on a trip one bit.

Even with optimal seating engineering, bad behavior can complicate travel. As a freshman in college, after working for a week in Berkeley for Spring Break, I took the midnight flight from San Francisco to San Diego. While waiting at the gate, I got picked up—-a gypsy woman or rather, a self-described witch singled me out as a kindred spirit. I suppose we looked the part. I had hair to my shoulders and a scraggly attempt at a beard, a work shirt with some embroidery on it, blue jeans, and work boots. For her part, a long Indian print skirt, sandals, a Mexican peasant blouse, with acres of unruly hair parted in the middle cascading everywhere. There was lots of silver and turquoise jewelry. She was a bit heavy set and had the movements of a talented belly dancer. She had a prominent nose with a wart just off center at the tip. She made firm eye contact and wanted to know everything about me. We covered my college career-so far-, where I grew up, my aspirations, and ultimately, my zodiac sign. I squirmed and worked on the only defense I knew, I asked her about her past, her aspirations, but not her Zodiac sign. We boarded and in those days, the red eye flight had open seating so she took the window seat after I sat in the middle next to a business man. She continued her interrogation wanting to know what time of day I was born and in what time zone. I tried a second strategy; I initiated a conversation with the businessman next to me. He was no business man. He was a dean of admission for the medical school at USC. Well……I became the gypy woman wannabe coming on to him as I was pre-med—schmoozing him and seeking advice on how to get into a prestigious medical school when coming from a respected university with a pass-fail grading system. The witch interrupted periodically noting my birth hour explained why I was so mellow while being an Aries. He suggested taking a few classes for grades to establish my credentials with confidence while going with the flow as my University was designed. Vegetarianism rose its head from the window seat. The choice of majors was dissected from the aisle. The science of natural contraception based on the lunar cycle came from the window, and the importance of making a good visual impression at the interview from the aisle. The stop over in LA never looked so good even with a ninety minute pause before the final leg to San Diego. It was now 2:00 in the morning. The witch was wistful; could we exchange numbers? We could not. My ride home was not quite the relief a homecoming I might have hoped for. My mother showed up with an ex-girlfriend in tow—one whom my mother hoped I might re-establish a relationship with—and who promptly and publicly snorted at my attempt to grow a beard.

Kernie, as usual, has an upgrade with her seatmate story. Kernie once ran a nail business and had a stable of wealthy clients. An hour with Kernie was not just for getting your nails done. It was a time to exchange confidences and get advice. I joked that she practiced family therapy without the required degree. One of her clients was in fact a therapist, the wife of a doctor in town. This woman was intense and not one of Kernie’s favorites (remember, people who go into psychiatry and therapy are often, themselves, a little crazy). In the course of a conversation, Kernie told of her plans to connect with an old friend from Olympia who had moved to Maine. The therapist thought that interesting and committed the week and airline to memory. When Kernie was at the gate, the therapist joined her and surprised her with the seat assignment that made them mates. The connection in Chicago was when the therapist would get off. Kernie learned that in those days, an airline was very accommodating when someone called and asked about where a person was sitting on the flight…….This felt like stalking and it only got worse as on the connecting flight home after a few days in Maine, she rejoined Kernie for the leg back. Kernie does not talk much about the content of their conversations. What relationship they had, died on the vine then, right about the time of her divorce and consequential move from town.

There have been pleasant experiences with seat mates. My children on more than one occasion were so well behaved, contrary to many other small children we have all traveled with, kicking the seat or arguing loudly (with parents who always seem to become wimps on vacation), that as they gathered their own things and packed them to carry, strangers from surrounding seats offered money in thanks for their example.

My friend Chuck traveling from South America had a new app on his phone to see if his intermittent A fib was active. A women next to him stopped reading her book to inquire what he was doing. He explained that he was trying to determine on his phone if he was in A fib. It turned out she was a cardiologist from Germany and she thoroughly enjoyed playing with his, “new toy” and happily concluded that he was in fact, in sinus rhythm.

I once traveled from Olympia to Georgia to attend my nephew’s graduation from basic training at Fort Benning. On the flight, I sat next to a quiet woman my age who noted I was reading The Red Tent. She thought it an unusual choice for a man my age and our banter for the next few hours made the cross country flight disappear quickly.

And lastly, without conversation, I did a good deed. On a flight home from San Diego, there were some ten newly graduated marine recruits in uniform going home after basic training. It was ten in the morning. Some were over twenty one and ordered beer. The recruit next to me was nineteen. I ordered a beer and without words, handed it to him with a congratulatory smile. I think I made his day and that felt good, criminal that I am.