I walked on to the flight, ticket in hand, ready to sit in seat 24H (an aisle seat) for the 4+ hours of air time between Rome and Cairo. When I got to my seat I was surprised to see someone already sitting in it. “ummm sir, I think that’s my seat” I said to him, already anticipating conflict. His response, made in broken English, was a request that he be allowed to sit in that seat so he could be next to a woman I assumed to be his wife. He then pointed to his assigned seat, 23 J. Because I am a pushover, I reluctantly agreed to the seat-swap. Thank you, the man said as he smiled at me. Then just as quickly as I had bent my will to a stranger the feigned gratitude slipped away from his face. Little did he know the debt he would soon owe me.
The seat I had taken, 23 J, was a middle seat. Middle seats are traditionally the worst thing possible. They lack the extra leg room that comes with an aisle seat and the benefit of a hard surface to lean up against for sleeping characteristic of the window. The only scenario in which it is appropriate to be happy about taking a middle seat is if you happen to be between two playboy playmates who happen to love anyone that comes between them. I was not so lucky. Instead I was greeted by 2 very large Egyptian men.
Each of these men, if I had sat next to them at any other time would have been easily the worst smelling passenger I had ever been obligated to sit next to. Together they created a stereo of impressive stench. Literally the only thing I could do to avoid vomiting was to turn the air conditioning on full blast pointed directly at my nose (which created problems of it’s own because I got quite chilly.
There were many subtle aspects about that ride that caused my hatred of the then occupant of seat 24 H to grow but none of them had quite the same impact of the experience that occurred barely half-way through the voyage. Answer me this question readers: if you are sitting on the aisle seat and the person in the window seat wants to get up to go to the bathroom, what do you do? If you said “get up and allow them to pass” the congratulations, your sensibilities are in line with what most civilized people would do. This practice, however, is apparently not standard procedure in Cairo.
When the man next to me got up to go to the bathroom I turned to the person on the aisle expecting that we would both get up. The guy on the aisle took the maintenance of his seated position to be more important than the comfort and ease of egress for other passengers. This meant I now had a very smelly Egyptian climbing over me. His legs straddling mine, his ass in my face as he tried to get out to release contents from it. Not that I am against ass-to-mouth but I thought it was a little forward of him to expect it on the first date.
Getting off the plain I felt more free than I ever have in my life, yet still felt dirtier than ever from the experience. I imagine it was how Tim Robbins character felt at the end of the Shawshank Redemption. I was finally free of my wretched prison but I had to crawl through a pipe of shit to get there.
it was like this... except I didn't have the cathartic effect of the rain
Of course my friends would not let me forget the torture I had just endured. Instead, I was laughed at repeatedly and subjected to stories that made me extremely jealous. Many of them has wonderful seat mates and luxurious accomodations.
A vividly unappealing narrative.
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