TRAVEL
Listen Up, Travelers! The Person in the Middle Seat Gets BOTH Armrests
There are no exceptions to this rule
My friend Ethel was recently stuck in a middle seat. On an eight-hour overnight flight.
When the plane reached cruising altitude, the man in the window seat and the man in the aisle seat each claimed both armrests. Moments later, they were sound asleep. Leaving Ethel trapped between them. Overnight. With both of their large, entitled arms crowding into her personal space.
This should not have happened.
It is a truth universally acknowledged among civilized travelers that the person in the middle seat on an airplane is entitled to BOTH armrests. To compensate for the many challenges inherent in having the middle seat.
Just to check that this rule still held, I asked my Facebook friends, “Does the traveler in the middle seat always get both armrests?” The response was a resounding “Yes!”
“Damn straight! It’s the unwritten law of air travel.”
“Absolutely!”
“Always. They have enough to bear as it is.”
“True. Everything else sucks about the middle seat.”
Except, of course, for my friend Ron, who responded with:
“There is no middle seat in first class. So I wouldn’t know.”
So did Ethel kick up a fuss? Did she knock her seatmates’ arms off the armrests and claim what was rightfully hers? Did she summon a flight attendant and ask him to wake up both usurpers and give them a stern lecture about airplane etiquette? At the very least, did she retaliate by giving both rude, entitled flyers a passive-aggressive little secret pinch to wake them up whenever they started snoring? Nope.
Ethel, like many women, has been socialized to not cause trouble. So instead of asserting her right to the armrests, she settled into the very small space her fellow travelers’ big old manly arms had left her and tried to get a little shuteye.
When she told me about this experience later, I was enraged on her behalf. And yet? I probably would have done the same thing. Which is to say that I would have done nothing. We women in our sixties were raised to not claim space. We don’t hog two subway seats when we only need one. We don’t spread our stuff all over the table at Starbucks so that we don’t have to share. We don’t manspread.
When you push, especially if you’re an adult male, we don’t push back.
What would I have done in Ethel’s place? I would have quietly reminded myself that air travel is a miracle. It’s amazing that you can travel to another continent in just 8 hours! So what if the seat you’re in isn’t as comfy as you’d like it to be? Knowing that, I’d attempt to convince myself to feel grateful for the miracle of flight instead of angry and hostile about the invasion of my space.
I would also have fantasized about being like Ron and being able to afford to fly first class. And fantasized about being bold enough to give the passive aggressive secret pinch method a try. (Don’t get mad, get even!)
And, of course, because I’m a writer, I would have sat there stewing in my too-small seat composing an irate essay calling out my seatmates’ crappy behavior. I’d write that essay to let off steam, sure. But just as important, I’d write that essay in an attempt to educate air travelers about the fact that, dammit, THE PERSON IN THE MIDDLE SEAT GETS BOTH ARMRESTS!!
Since Ethel doesn’t write essays, I’m writing this one for her. And for every other person who has ever been trapped in middle seat hell between two selfish armrest-hoggers. Maybe it won’t make a difference. But maybe it will.
You’re welcome.
Writing Coach and editor-for-hire Roz Warren, who writes for everyone from the Funny Times to the New York Times, can help you improve and publish your work. Drop her a line at [email protected]. (That’s Ros with an “s,” not a “z.”)
