Freakwent Flyers
Just Your Standard Center Seat
FROM HELL
I’d been dreading this flight for weeks, since the day I made my reservation. The plane was overbooked, so I had no choice but to choose a center seat, and for a claustrophobic, a center seat is Satan’s sick joke.
I had to be in Cincinnati, no if, and, or buts.
Dreadfully I dragged my sorry self onto the plane. Finding my seat, I was encouraged to find an empty spot to my left and right.
No sooner than I put my satchel under the row in front of me that I saw (out of the corner of my eye) a skinny man and normal-sized woman eyeing the seat numbers above me.
“Excuse me, I have the window, and my husband (motioning to Mr. skinny) has the aisle. But don’t move; I’ll just scoot past you,” said the Mrs.
Bingo! I thought to myself. A married couple. Surely they’ll want to sit next to each other. Here was my opportunity. “I’d be happy to take the aisle seat if you two would prefer to sit together,” I said, trying not to be too enthusiastic.
“No, we can absolutely not sit next to each other,” the woman nearly yelled. Oh no, this is worse than I thought. What the hell?
“Absolutely not; we designed it this way,” said the husband. What does that mean, I wondered. Clearly, I’m damned.
No sooner had they sat than it began.
Reaching into her purse, the Mrs. pulled out a gallon-sized Zip-Lock bag. Bewildered, I saw the bag was full of pieces of what appeared to be metal. Little chips of various sizes but most about Frito size.
“I’m starved,” Mr. Skinny said as he unapologetically reached across me to snag the bag. An absolute no-no for a claustrophobe to endure. I nearly caved into myself when she leaned over to take a pair of souped-up earplugs from his open palm. As soon as she grabbed the plugs, they were in her ears.
They nodded at each other. It felt conspiratorial.
The Mrs. noticed a look of confusion on my face and whispered, “Oh, don’t worry, he has acuphagia, been eating metal since he was a kid. He just loves it.”
“And she has misophonia; extreme reactions to certain sounds. She can’t stand the sound of metal being chewed in her case. Ironic, ain’t it?” Mr. Skinny spoke very loudly so she could hear through her earplugs.
They smiled at each other and simultaneously said, “But we’re madly in love. What are you gonna do?” They then added, “Jinx!”
In an instant, he opened the bag, grabbed a chip, popped it into his mouth, and chewed. Chewed, munched, mangled, making a hideous sound like a shark knawing on a beached submarine. It was the worst sound I had ever heard until the Mrs. began to groan, a sound so unearthly it defied description. A sound beyond primal, pre-primal perhaps. A beastly wale.
Ten minutes into what became a three-hour cacophony of calcium gnashing metal and the reflexive siren, it became clear that they were somehow enjoying this. As though I was caught in some bizarre Menage a Trois. I was a shortstop in their squeeze play. My middle presence seemed to provide a tonic.
A relief for them. And ease for me? For the three-hour flight, I totally forgot about the hell of having claustrophobia in the middle seat. Would it last? Had I stumbled onto a cure? Is there something to being the center net of a ping-pong game of the stricken? Only time would tell.
The moral of the story is?
Just go with it if you’re a claustrophobe stuck in a middle seat between a worse-afflicted married couple.
The third wheel in a bizarre love triangle? Perhaps.
Effective? One hundred percent!
A big thanks to Kristine Laco for her editing and ongoing support!
