That’s right folks. Just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get worse — airline travel in economy class now sucks more than ever, I have just determined after a round trip between Newark, New Jersey and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The seats have continued to get smaller and the rows closer together, while I have remained essentially the same size since 1983. The guy in front of you leans his seat back, and you can barely read your reading material, unless you like holding the text up to your nose.
With truly endemic obesity in the USA, most adults simply don’t fit in these little containers any more. Now there is an unwritten law that holds that the more corpulent passenger takes possession of the arm rest, which in any case is marginally adequate for a single, normal-sized human arm.
As a captive audience you are treated to movies that are not only mindless and annoying, but also violent. I would have raised serious hell if I had had my two year old daughter with me, because her mother and I have decided that she has decades ahead of her in which to see people being beaten, shot and otherwise abused on film and television; she does not need to start yet. It is outrageous that some no-mind in charge of programming the in-flight entertainment for Continental should take it upon (her|him)self to override our decision.
Oh by the way. The seats in the last row on some aircraft do not recline. Maybe this is common knowledge to savvy travelers and I’m a bumpkin. Wouldn’t it nevertheless be nice if the airline’s website would warn you about that when you’re making your seat selection? I had to find out the hard way on the way to PR and sit upright in my tiny seat for four hours.
Then they come around with “food.” On the outbound trip I asked them if they had any lethal injections, which they didn’t, so I said I’d pass. On the return trip they had “Philedalphia Cheesesteaks” for us sorry rabble. I didn’t have the chutzpah to ask them if they had any non-red-meat alternative. Out of sheer hunger and boredom, I submitted to the humiliation of eating it.
I did find useful a psychological trick that I’ve developed for such situations: assume you have died and gone to hell to suffer eternally. Then you will be pleasantly and genuinely surprised to hear the voice announce your initial descent to earth.