The indignity of travel by air, or, portrait of the artist as a young sardine.

It really is a miracle. To leave one’s home in West Michigan at 2 pm and 15 hours later be sitting in a piazza in the center of the eternal city of Rome. A trip that took my great grandparents some weeks! I try to keep this thought in mind as we jostle and jockey for position in the “line” at the gate, then the Tetris championship tournament of carry on and overhead bin space. Only to be rewarded with a thin cushioned seat and the armrest joust game. Now I make no claim to be a small guy, I think I would be considered the definition of average… 5 feet 11 inches wearing a 36 inch waist, but the space allotted per passenger in economy (steerage) class on a commercial airliner would have the aspca, peta and the friends of fowl protesting in Washington if I was a chicken. Now I know what the two year old child stuck in the back seat of the stroller made for twins must feel like. The only possible next step is to take the seats out all together and install poles and handles and require everyone to stand. The gate attendants could shove people in the door Tokyo subway style.

Eating at 40,000 feet is always a special experience. As the seats and the space between them have slowly evaporated, the size of the tray table has followed. So when that tray of little individual dishes, each with a cover on it or wrapped in plastic, is unapologetically dropped in front of you the only place to put the lids and wrappers is under and on top of each dish. It’s quite the puzzle exercise. Heaven forbid you have to cut your food. The only way to make that work is to get everyone in your row synchronized, lest one get or give an elbow to your neighbor’s liver… aaaaand, cut, right left right left one two one two…

We made it though, stiffer than last time, but better fed. (that last part was facetious).