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To the guy sitting in 7A

August 28, 2006 Rant

Here’s the thing: When you arrive at the gate two minutes before the plane is supposed take off, you give up your right to complain. I don’t care what it says on your ticket. You take any available open seat.

That’s the deal. Maybe it’s not printed in all of the legalese, but it’s part of the social contract between all flyers: sit down, shut up, and let us push back from the gate.

What’s worse, it wasn’t even your seat. You claimed to have switched with some woman at the back of the plane, yet here you were at row seven, complaining that people weren’t in their assigned seats. J’accuse, my friend, j’accuse.

I wasn’t directly involved in the Great Seating Controversy of Flight 215. I was one row back, biting my tongue and proffering Cheerios to my daughter. Anything I might have said, any way I might have intervened, would have no doubt greater delayed our departure.

So instead, I spent a few minutes memorizing every detail of your face, so that at some point in the future when it won’t inconvenience 200 air travelers I might have the opportunity to let you know: You, sir, are a dick.

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