I knew it was going to be a bad flight....

When I got C24.

I know what you're thinking - "But Bryn, I thought you were one of the Southwest Elite.  I thought you had the automatic A."  Well,  when you change your flight 2 hours before it's going to leave...you get C24.  Or as a colleague said, C means Center (or crappy).  Either way, it wasn't going to be good.

I get on the plane and I see an aisle seat near the front....but some crazy lady is leaning over it like she owns the thing.  So I move on.  I decide to snag an exit row seat.  Well, the people in that row are doing their best to preserve the middle seat.  I know, I've don it before.  You put as much crap as you can in the middle seat and hope no one is bold enough to ask.  Well, I was going to ask.  So here's how it went:

B: Is that seat taken

- blank stares - they were trying to get me to move on

B:  Excuse me, are you saving that seat?

- blank stares -

B:  Excuse me, is that seat taken?

Lady in the window seat:  Well, if you mean "can I sit here" then yeah, I guess you can (said with a hint too much attitude for my taste).

Well, mr. man-in-the-aisle must have decided I was skinny enough to get by.  So he didn't stand.  He moved his knees to one side and let me hop over him.  I'll take it as a compliment.  FYI - not enough room for this maneuver.  But I got to my seat.

Now, this row is special.  The person at the window actually gets miles of leg room because there is no seat in front - it leaves room for the emergency exit door.  As a result, the lady at the window put her gigantic bag underneath the seat in front of me.  So I had about 2 square inches for my bag.  Luckily I packed light and had no shame using my feet to push everything under.

Well, we ended up leaving about 40 minutes late.  Why?  Because some idiot thought she could bring a cat on a southwest flight.  SW doesn't allow animals, but she brought one right onto the plane and it took 40 minutes to figure things out.  

Mid way through the flight a young boy behind us started using the tray tables as his own private drum set.  Window seat lady turned around and asked for him to stop.  She was told, "well maybe if you move up your seat he wont be able to reach it."  REALLY?  I mean, I was no fan of window seat lady, but that's just outrageous.  Take some responsibility for your kid.

Later, window lady starts asking me about being engaged and what not.  She then tells me that she recently got engaged, but didn't get a ring.  Ok....then she tells me that she's going to get to pick hers out.  Great.  Then she tells me she gets to spend $8000 on it.  We just met.  Odd.

Needless to say I was glad to get off that plane and get home.

Humanity redeemed itself just as I was leaving Oakland.  2 young kids were meeting grandma at the airport and they were so thrilled to see her come down the escalator.  There was a collective "GRANDMA" followed by running to give her a big hug.  It made me warm inside.