I always thought the worst thing to happen on a routine airplane flight - seating wise, that is - is to get stuck sitting next to someone who is an extreme talker. Or perhaps in the middle seat between two "pleasantly plump" passengers, crunched in the middle seat like peanut butter smushed between two slices of bread. Or the guy who sweats and leaves the smell of pickles...whenever I walk onto a flight and smell pickles, I immediately start sniffing the air like a beagle, trying to identify the source so that I can hopefully avoid it. Pickles and airplanes are forever linked in my head.

Recently, when flying from Phoenix to Kansas City, I discovered something far worse than the fate of being subjected to the ramblings of a well-intentioned talker or cozy between two seat-spillers: three people over six foot in a trio of seats. I somehow managed to find myself seated between two Arizona State University basketball players. At six foot, I typically look for the aisle seat or the emergency row exits so I have a seat where my legs have an opportunity to stretch out for even the briefest moments during the flight. While most people will at least use the bathroom during a flight as an excuse to stretch their legs out or take a brief jaunt up and down the plane aisle, I typically find myself glued to my seat unless it's a worse-case, can't-hold-it-anymore scenario. I'm so unsteady on my feet on the actual ground without flying that walking around on an in-flight airplane is the grandest of challenges: the slightest turbulence while I'm walking around will send me flying (no pun intended) into another passenger's lap or my head bouncing off the overhead bins. I'm also deathly afraid of inadvertently bumping into the door and somehow opening the door inflight, causing the passengers all to get sucked out. So I'd rather stay seated.

When the two ASU basketball players saw me headed toward their seat, I think they had the same moment of "Oh shit" panic that I did. The one guy sitting next to the window was easily 6'8, while the guy on the aisle seat was 6'2. When I sat down, I smiled apologetically and said "Sorry, guys, at least it's a short flight." And so on that two-hour long flight, I sat for most of it with the 6'8 basketball player's long legs pressed into my left thigh, and my legs tucking in and out from underneath me. I'd sit on them to get them out of the way, but would have to place them back down again when the blood stopped circulating to my legs and my feet became numb. Had I not been so uncomfortable, I might have enjoyed sitting between two nice-looking young men.  I might be better served to fly in the bathroom instead if I ever encounter that scenario again...