Hey. It’s been a while since I dropped into your inbox.
How are things? Do you have 200 things to read but decided to go with this because it’s kind of like comfort food?
If so, happy you’re here. Been too long. We don’t hang out anymore. That’s my bad. Seriously, I know you’ve got a lot on your plate but my B. For real.
Anyway………..
Wanted to keep you posted on what I’ve been up to — narcissist alert lmao heh heh — and share a short story based on a flight I took a couple weeks ago on American Airlines.
Before that though, the comedy updates.
1.) I put two Instagram Reel sketches on…Instagram Reels recently. That’s where they go, I think. The first is a video of me reviewing the five worst things I ate last year and number two is a parody song called “My Phlegmy Valentine.” Bonus points if you get the joke!!!
2.) Last year, I wrote and co-directed (with Aaron Bryan) a lil movie called We Regret To Inform You starring Anna Paone (m’wife), CW Headley (m’friend) and Michael Margetis (m’favorite improviser). I think it’s very funny and you should hopefully hear more about it soonish.
3.) I’ve been doing a dumb bit on Twitter (or X, blech) where I start a tweet every single day with “Today’s the Super Bowl of” and then write a “joke” about what' the big news story of the day is. I’d say the best one was last year when I wrote on this on 4/20:
Heh
Not bad.
So, yeah, it’s been going for over a year (to diminishing returns) and is a novel writing challenge (for me at least). If this interests you in the slightest, you can see all my “bits” here.
There’s probably more that I know I’ll think of once I hit publish but I can always write another one of these things. So there’s that.
OK, now for the main attraction.
Drumroll…
Here’s that short story I teased up top. It’s called Middle Seat. There are seven footnotes! I believe that’s a Guinness World Record. Sorry, David Foster Wallace. You’ve been bested.
Enjoy.
Middle Seat
“Oh, no.”
Matt hovered over every single aisle on American Airlines’ seating chart for their March 16 flight from JFK to PHX. After triple checking, it looked like there were no ABC or DEF rows together.
This was a problem because Matt was traveling with his wife and infant daughter. They all needed to sit together for the five-hour trip1.
So, he did what anyone would do in this situation. Matt booked seats for his wife and daughter next to each other and one for himself in the row ahead of them. In his mind, that was pretty good. A win, even.
“You did what?” Anna, his wife, cried.
Matt explained that she’d be sitting with their one-year-old and he’d try to switch with someone when they were onboard there so he could sit next to her. It all made perfect sense in his head.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Anna said.
A long sigh.
“Why not,” Matt asked, trying to keep his cool. He’d already spent 15 minutes on this. That was a long time for him.
“No one in their right mind wants to trade an aisle for a middle.”
She had a point. Middles are the cheese2 of the sky.
“Get an aisle or window seat as trade bait.”
Hot dog! That was a stellar idea. Now they were cooking.
Honestly, at this point, Matt was just glad they were ignoring the fact that they were in this mess because he booked the trip last minute.
This is just what happens when you wait to do things. You get stuck with a problem you didn’t even know existed.
Anyway, he booked the aisle seat — not the middle — ahead of them. That way, this stranger they’d be bartering with would have virtually the same seat. Genius.
Then, they waited five weeks before the flight.
The prospect of not sitting together for the cross country trip lingered in Matt’s fragile, fearful mind.
Maybe they should cancel, push back the vacation and find another airline?
At night, Matt googled “is there an app where you can bump someone from their seat for a fee?” There wasn’t3.
Matt Googled what other people do in this scenario. Some (the famed parenting newsletter ScaryMommy) say to politely ask a gate agent for help; others (a guy on Reddit) suggest flying JetBlue where they try to seat parents with their kids as best they can.
Finally, after worrying way too much about something pretty small4, Matt decided to role play the scenario with Anna.
“OK, I’ll be you and you’ll be the person coming to our aisle,” Matt explained.
His tired wife gave him a thumbs up.
“You’re gonna have to get up and walk over to the row.”
She shook her head no. This was a ridiculous ask.
“Fine. Pretend to approach the aisle.”
Anna put on an indiscernible accent. “What’s going on here?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Matt said in a cracking high-pitched voice. “My baby just pooped everywhere. Do you mind if my husband sits here and helps me clean? You can have his window seat over there.”
Anna stopped him.
“That’s not what I sound like.”
She wasn’t wrong; the impression was pretty far off.
The poop concept was strong, though. No one wants to sit next to poop. A middle seat is always preferable to close poop proximity. Vomit could work as a backup plan, too.
If the bodily function excuse didn’t come through, Matt and Anna agreed they could offer to give the unlucky person near us 100 bucks. In cash. Maybe they’d just feel sorry for them at that point and say “No, it’s fine.”
Eventually, they landed on the best solution of all. Breastfeeding. Of course! If a stranger doesn’t let a family sit together in that situation, Anna could start crying or insist that Matt needs to help. And if that failed, they’d have 100 bucks handy.
NOTE: At this point in the story, it should be said that the author had another semi-humorous idea that would go here. He thought of it in the middle of the night and never wrote it down. So just imagine a really good joke here.
FOLLOW UP: The author remembered what he wanted to write. It was “Kid Is a mutant that can climb.” That doesn’t make sense and he’s glad it didn’t officially make the story.
March 16 rolled around.
Everyone woke up on time, the Uber driver arrived promptly and the family was at JFK with 90 minutes to spare.
Sure, there were a few hiccups. First, Matt didn’t know which side was “handle up” when weighing his checked bag; then, a gate agent told them they didn’t have to worry about printing boarding passes which meant they had to do a lot of phone scanning and finally, the person at TSA felt like lecturing them that morning.
Technically, they were at the airport employees’ place of work. It’s pretty easy to get annoyed when people come to your space and don’t do things just how you like them.
Matt wasn’t thinking about all that when the family sauntered up to the gate from the moving walkway5. He had one job. Matt had to ask if they could pre-board.
“We’ll bump you up to group five,” the harried American Airlines desk jockey smiled.
Didn’t sound bad. Matt went back to report to Anna.
She said she could do better and handed the baby over.
Two minutes later, Anna returned. “We’re pre-boarding,” she reported.
“How’d you do that,” Matt said while picking up the bags to haul onboard.
“Just tell them you have a car seat,” she explained while strapping baby Zelda into her carrier.
To the back of the plane they went to their mess of seats. Once they arrived, Anna set up the car seat at the window — facing forward as every flight attendant reminded them.
Matt bounced baby Zelda on his lap while Anna futzed with the buckle. Then, it was the waiting game. Each person that boarded could be the one that booked the aisle seat they needed.
Matt had a speech at the ready that had the word “poop” in it three times.
Finally, it happened. A middle-aged lady approached. She was the one. They prepared for this moment for weeks.
“You have a baby? I’ll move,” she said.
All that for nothing. You just read so much for the biggest anti-climax ever. Sorry.
Anna pointed to Matt’s aisle seat where she’d be sitting and the kind lady settled in.
Somehow, Zelda fell asleep. To pass the time, Anna queued up My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3; Matt selected Ferrari6. They’d be watching on their phones since American Airlines was too cheap to have those little TVs on the back of the seats.
Just as the plane was about to take off, an overly tan 50-something woman rushed to the back with her five-year-old daughter and curly haired, crying infant.
“I need someone to move now” she announced with the authority of a government official.
Apparently, she booked two middle seats in consecutive rows.
Clearly, she didn’t role play this situation ahead of time. She was raw dogging the moment.
Matt and Anna watched their nightmare play itself out.
No one budged. Switching to a middle for a cross-country flight is beyond charity; it’s an act of sainthood.
“Let’s move people, chop chop,” she — let’s call her Carolina — barked.
A man got up. He sighed and made sure to make the move as begrudging as possible. Good for him.
“Gee thanks, took you long enough,” she said a little louder than one might expect for an act of gratitude. There was even a hint of sarcasm.
Once she settled in, Carolina needed her overhead bags stowed. The only problem was there was no room at this point. All the spaces were taken7.
“Then let’s make room, chop chop!” Carolina demanded. She really was going hard with the chop chops.
Flight attendants sighed under their masks as they rearranged the tightly packed spaces designed to fit as few compact suitcases as possible.
Finally, Carolina’s bags were in their right place.
Of course, her baby began to wail. Of course.
Zelda watched curiously.
“Baby,” Zelda said.
The plane took off and the crying didn’t get much better until Carolina set the little one down.
Yes, she was going to let a toddler walk up and down the aisles for the duration of the flight- even during turbulence. This was nuts.
Matt looked back to see what Carolina was doing while her baby — who had likely learned to walk in the past three months — wandered freely.
Carolina had one headphone in. Her five-year-old had the other. They were watching Barbie together. This would be a sweet moment if she was traveling with just one daughter.
Meanwhile, the infant she wasn’t watching was going up and down the aisle giggling and tripping, giggling and tripping.
At noon, they landed. Nothing bad happened. It was mostly just annoying.
As Matt and Anna stood up when the “everybody rush to grab your stuff” light went on, Carolina tapped Matt’s shoulder.
“Your daughter is beautiful,” she offered.
“Thank you so much,” Matt said. He went down to pick up blueberries Zelda had dropped under the seat mid-flight.
“You don’t think you could…” she trailed off.
Matt looked at her with an eyebrow. Carolina was going to have to spit this one out herself.
“Carry my bags off the plane?”
Matt mulled it over.
“My daughter just pooped and my wife has poop on her hands. I’d love to help but, you know. Poop.”
Caroline nodded. Matt was stoked, though.
He finally got to use his speech.
1 It’s not a good look to be the dad watching The Truman Show while your wife struggles. Hence, the need to solve this problem.
2 The author doesn’t like cheese. Some people might think highly of cheese. Interpret this however you like.
3 This might be a good invention. Sharks, if you’re reading this, I’ll give you a 10% stake for an aisle seat in return.
4 And not taking the advice of the websites he just perused.
5 They’re officially called “Trav-O-Lator machines” in case you were wondering.
6 The author knows that this dates the story but it’s a good time capsule and decided to keep this detail in.
7 The pilot had pointed out that it was a full flight. Still, no one was leaving room for two stragglers that boarded at the last minute. That’s just not how it works.