I recently shared a few fabulously funny things that I saw while traveling by air a few weeks ago.  I wrote a story about jiggling during pre-boarding and another about inflight crinkling by Chris Crinkle. I have one more story to share about that flight and it will close out the trifecta. Three funny stories on one short flight just shows to go ya, there are a lot of funny things happening in everyday life-if you just pay attention.

During boarding, I watched a tall chubby man shuffle down the aisle to his seat, which happened to be in the row in front of me.  Chubby is a word my father-in-law used to describe me during the later months of pregnancy.  I didn’t like it. Now that I’m using it in this story I realize what he really meant was that I was big.  He must have felt that chubby was a kinder word choice-but it wasn’t and I still think of him every time I hear that word.  Anyway, he-the passenger, not my father-in-law-carried a personal item and one small overstuffed bag that would not fit into the overhead bin.  I don’t know where he ended up putting all of his stuff, but I did hear him call the plane a “clown plane” because “everything was so small.”  Funny how he and I perceived the mismatch between his size, the size of his bag, and the size of the plane, differently.

I sat in my seat minding my business and hoping that once seated, he wouldn’t reduce my 17×29 space by reclining his seat.  He didn’t and all was well until it was time to deplane.  No, I’m not talking about the Tattoo type of ‘de plane’ but the actual ‘getting off the plane’ type of deplane.

Anyone who has flown knows what happens during deplaning. The pilot shuts off the seat belt sign and people jump up from their seats like jack-in-the-boxes.  Where do they think they are going?  The door isn’t even open yet and they’re already standing up, grabbing their bags, and lining up to get out. I just sat and watched. You see a lot of interesting things when you just sit and watch things unfold.

Unsurprisingly, the chubby man couldn’t get out of his ‘clown seat’.  He wiggled and yes, he jiggled, but he couldn’t get out.  Luckily, another passenger must have worked in the circus because she knew how to release chubby clowns from the clown car, or in this case, plane.  She reached in and pushed a button under the armrest of the man’s seat and ta-da, he was free to move about the cabin. But that wasn’t the only act in the show.  He did acrobatics. For whatever reason, he decided he had enough room to bend over and pick something up from the floor in front the seats across the aisle. I was impressed that he held triangle pose that long. When he stood back up he hit his head on the ceiling and that made him drop his overstuffed bag. A downward dog to pick it up and a few shuffles later, he was finally ready to deplane.  It was quite a show. I think he had it wrong when he called the plane a clown plane.  He should have called it a circus.

Thanks for sharing the laughter!

Eliza G.