What Was The Person Who Designed The Middle Seat Thinking?

aircraft inside plane flight
Image used for representation only

 

Part of the problem of being a cog in the modern, global economy is the fact that you need to travel for work. And whether you like it or not, part of that travel has to be by air…

Now, there is a lot to be said for air travel. It is quick, it is (believe it or not) safe and all things considered, it is remarkably comfortable. Well, except for the legroom, but one musn’t gripe too much. Not in the first paragraph, at any rate.

Still, there are some things about air travel that never fail to confuse the bejeesus out of me –  every time, and without fail.

What follows is a short list of said questions. I have not been able to come close to finding answers to any of them, and every single one never fails to elicit in me a sense of immense wonder and awe.

Here they are, in more or less chronological order…

When people queue up at the gate before the boarding announcement is made, where do they hope to go?

What was the person who designed the middle seat thinking? How troubled, exactly, was their childhood?

Why is the roti served in flights a slightly worse version of stale, reheated cardboard?

Come to think of it, why not actually serve cardboard instead?

Why are infants coded to cry loudest in flights?

Why are infants infinitely likelier to sit in my vicinity on a flight?

Why does this stratospherically high probability go even higher when I have a headache, or haven’t slept well the night before?

Why do we not call it nanometer? Why not legroom-o-meter?

You know those advertising notices pasted on the back of seats in an aircraft? How do you remove them?

How inconsiderate do people have to be to watch movies or TV series on their phones or tablets – without using headphones?

Is there a position one can assume while sitting in a seat that gives one a deep, dreamless sleep?

Is there a person who has finished a flight without a crick in the neck?

Is there a person who has finished a flight and doesn’t have a deep and abiding loathing for humanity?

And above all, and specific to the flight that I was a part of the other day, there is a question that has been bothering me immensely. Here’s the background:

To the uncle who dropped his tray of food into the aisle, and then yelled at the air-hostess who came to clean up the mess for putting too much food on the tray…

...and then dropped (dropped! I kid you not) the tissue paper he had been using to wipe his dirty, grubby hands onto her lap as she knelt in the aisle…

I have a question for you. Answer honestly, now, mind you.

One of your forefathers designed the middle seat, now didn’t he?

~~

 

Ashish Kulkarni