DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

“I’m going to be up for a while,” she said. “And I’m going to be down for the count,” I think in reply. Even my mouth is tired. My wife had arrived four days ago, and had therefore acclimated to the time change. But I’ve only just flown in, and by 8pm am unable to sustain consciouness any longer.

My day began 27 hours ago. In that time I’ve eaten five meals and flown one-third of the way around the world. And I have slept not at all: I am a glassy-eyed zombie, a stumbling, regretfully vertical experiment in sleep deprivation.

Even on the best of days I have trouble sleeping on airplanes… but today was worse. I was pinched between one of those inconsiderate sorts who threw her seat all the way back shortly after takeoff, and a guy who spent much of the flight asleep with his head on the tray table behind me. Had I tipped my seat backwards I’d have crushed him.

The woman ahead of me was intent on using every angstrom of space available. Not only did she keep he seat all the way back when she was leaning forward to eat, she kept it all the way back when she left to walk around the cabin. And a half-dozen times during the flight, she arched her weight back onto her shoulders, briefly forcing her seat even further into my lap, as if she could achieve another degree of recline due to metal fatigue.

Certainly it is not her fault I’m a bit too tall to fit comfortably in a coach-class seat… from now on I’ll be requesting seats in the bulkhead row. But I would have appreciated a little consideration. At one point, when she wasn’t actually in her seat, I very politely asked her if she’d mind moving it forward. “So long as you are not actually sitting in it,” I said in what I hoped sounded beseeching rather than bitterly sarcastic. She looked to see how my knees were smashed up against her seat back. “Oh, you poor guy” she exclaimed. And then, three minutes later, she sat back down, and cranked her seat all the way back anyway.