"Lock the doors and close the blinds -- we're going for a ride..."

Flew home today from Southern Florida.  It was a wonderful trip for socKs and av, and a wonderful two trips for me (as I returned home for a week and then went back down south a few days later). The flights had been booked relatively far in advance, and we had done our seat reservations online.  For this flight from Fort Lauderdale to DC, socKs and Av had 8A and 8B reserved, and I had 8C.  The reservations for me had been made separately since I had booked two round-trip tickets while they had stayed down in Florida for nearly two weeks, but since they were booked at the same time, getting seats together wasn't a problem.

Or so I thought.

In fact, when we flew down together two Thursdays ago, we couldn't all reserve seats together. Turns out that Av and socKs had 23D and 23E and I was stuck with 22F.  But that was resolved rather quickly -- all I had to do was smile, be friendly, and ask the nice man in 23F if he could trade places with me.  It was a window seat for a window seat and he knew he didn't have to sit in the same row as a three year old. Everybody wins.  He had no problem switching with us. It was a good flight out -- Av slept through most of it.

Although we had already booked our flight and received confirmation for seats 8A, 8B and 8C, we checked in and found out that while Av and socKs had seats 8A and 8B, my boarding pass indicated that I was sitting in 5C.  Interesting. Hadn't we already reserved three seats together? Oh well. Being that it was a flight in the middle of the day on a Tuesday, we were happy to find out that it was not a full flight.  And chances are the smile and a favor of the person sitting in 8C would allow us to sit together after all. 5C wasn't a bulkhead seat, and it was that much closer to the front of the plane, which means being able to save a bit of time disembarking.  This would be easy.

Or so I thought.

We "pre-boarded" -- a special privilege we had since Av is a young child traveling with us -- which meant we were in line with the folks boarding towards the back of the plane. In front of us was a woman, possibly in her mid to late 60s, who was told at the counter that her section had not yet boarded.  She then shreiked back that she was travelling with her husband who had already gotten on the plane, and that she needed to be on as well.  They let her through. And then they let us through.

Av was charming to the flight attendants when he came aboard. socKs and he sat in 8A and 8B. I got my smile ready. There was a gentleman who had already claimed 8C.  I politely asked if it would be a problem if he could switch seats with me and move to 5C.

Apparently it was a problem. Not as much for him as for his wife, the lady in front of us in line, who was sitting in 8F. They were traveling with their kids as well, and all four of them had to be together, apparently, in seats 8C, 8D, 8E and 8F.  We had explained that we wanted to be in close proximity to our three year old, which is likely why she brought her kids into it.

socKs asked her how old her kids were.  "Oh, they're adults," was the reply.  In fact, the "kids" hadn't boarded the plane yet because they had been waiting patiently for their row to be called!

Both socKs and I had our smiles on, trying to win over this middle aged couple. The trade was an aisle seat for an aisle seat not too far away.  It would likely be a more pleasant journey not having to be in the same row as a three year old kid. But they were quite upset at the notion that we would inconvenience them -- after all, the man I was attempting to displace had to "talk business" with his son-in-law across the aisle!  The woman demanded to know why I was doing this to him and not asking the folks in 5A and 5B to switch with Av and socKs instead. I guess common sense, to me, was that two people switching seats would be easier than, say, four people switching seats.

Fortunately, the guy in 9D had overheard all of this and offered to switch over to 5C -- allowing the Dad to sit immediately behind his son-in-law. We smiled and thanked him, continuing to absorb the glares from dear old Mom in 8F whose entire trip we had obviously ruined.

But we're not going to lose any sleep over it. Mom in 8F read her book the entire time. Dad in 9D read his newspaper. Son-in-law in 8D slept the entire trip. So much for talking business. Meanwhile, Av had to take two bathroom breaks on the plane, something which would have inconvenienced Dad had he sat where I was sitting. Twice.

And that, my friends, was how I won the battle of seat 8C.