open seats
After you board an airplane, there’s nothing like that magical moment when the cabin doors close and there is an entire row of empty seats right next to you. You look up and down the aisle to make sure there’s not one last straggler trudging down with his roller bag. You glance at your neighbors to see if they’re scheming, too. You have to act fast. The moment you sense the all-clear, you make your move.
Luxury in row 49.
We’ve had great luck on our long-haul flights to and from Africa, and our journey from South Africa to London was shaping up to be the same. Kelli and I poached a row of four seats right before take off and we were sitting pretty … until I took this photo:
I totally jinxed us.
Shortly after we started to kick back and enjoy the extra legroom, a flight attendant tapped me on the shoulder.
Excuse me, where are your original seats? Because we have a passenger who is feeling very ill indeed and we think he might be better off lying down.
At first I was a bit pouty, acting like a child who thought the sitter was going to let him stay up past bedtime only to have his parents come home early. But once I saw the middle-aged man sheepishly sit down, looking green and sweaty with an air sickness bag in hand, I forgot all about being stuck in the middle seat.
Believe me, coming from someone who once barfed all over the seats on a flight to Hawaii,1 there’s nothing worse than being sick on a plane.
