Classic Look back at one of my favorite shows— and I think this was the flight that got me to stop flying Economy…
I don’t know what it is about Delta Airlines, it could be the surly flight attendants, it could be the fact that their planes just feel smaller. I suspect they’ve squeezed in a few extra rows. They offer First Class (which isn’t much better) Comfort Plus which is the next 6-7 rows on the plane and then Regular Seating which is the equivalent to third class steerage in the Titanic but with slightly less livestock.
For the flight out to Washington I had a window seat— now I have an occasional bought with Claustrophobia, but I can’t explain why, how and when it kicks in— it’s not all the time, but when it does I’d suggest you get out of my way. It’s happened in a tiny hotel room in New York City with extremely narrow hallways. It happened when I sat in the interior of one of those deep round booths at a Jewish Deli. It’s happened once on a plane but that was on a long flight to Japan before I learned the joys of upgrading. On this flight at about hour three I suddenly felt like I was trapped on an overly warm plane when the guy in front of me dropped his seat all the way back putting the TV screen I was watching about six inches from my nose. Our seats DIDN’T recline, we hadn’t thought this would be a big deal but now trapped behind this guy, Veronica next to me and a woman who was working on her overly large laptop in the aisle seat I had to get up.
I basically climbed over both of them and ran up the ridiculously narrow aisle to the bathroom at the back of the plane where I splashed cold water on my face for a minute. I stepped out and stood in the crew area, took off my sweater and tried slowing my breathing to calm down. The flight attendants were busy reading magazines so I poured myself a glass of water and looked back down that aisle of twisted mangled bodies— all of whom were desperately trying to get comfortable.
It was exactly like this (substitute the prison guard with a flight attendant);
Knowing when I get like this I could bring the plane down, Veronica graciously switched seats with me for the rest of the flight and I managed to suffer my way through the remaining two and a half hours. When we landed Veronica looked over at me and said “I’m taking the train back.”
We made our way to our bags and our ride, provided by show organizer James. He was a friendly sort and he drove us the 30 minutes to our hotel which was located directly, and I mean directly, across the side street from the convention center. It was a big suite, very comfortable and we showered and went to bed.
Continued Next Week