After I got on the plane, a woman walked up to the empty seat next to me and sat her daughter in it. Apparently, she’d bought the tickets last minute and couldn’t get seats together. I sighed, gathered my things, and gave her my aisle seat. She thanked me quickly, already distracted, and I made my way to her seat instead.
Her seat turned out to be the middle one in the very last row. No window. No aisle. Just me, a narrow armrest, and the gentle hum of the engine reminding me that karma was not seated nearby.
I tried to laugh it off and settled in. A flight attendant passed out SkyMall catalogs, and I started flipping through it, killing time and pretending I might actually buy a massage chair that cost more than my rent.
About an hour into the flight, I felt a tap on my shoulder.
It was the woman.
She was standing in the aisle, arms crossed, eyes blazing. “Excuse me,” she snapped. “That catalog you’re holding is mine. You took it from my seat.”
I blinked. “I just moved seats. I can give you the one from here.”
She scoffed. “That’s not the same one.”
I handed it over anyway. She snatched it, muttered something about people having no respect, and marched back to her row.
I leaned back, staring at the seatbelt sign, wondering how giving up your seat could still somehow make you the villain.
