"Karma, karma, karma, karma, Karma Chameleon" --Culture Club

Act 1)  As we enter the Metro car, I notice a woman is sitting in the first seat of a fairly crowded Metro train, in the aisle seat.  No one is in the window seat.  I make eye contact with her, a clear challenge.  Oh, yeah, I'm all over the glaring.  To my surprise, she moves.  That is, she moves her knees, only, out toward the aisle:  the universal symbol for "you can squeeze by me."  I squeeze by her, thinking "maybe she's getting off at the next stop."  Nope.  We travel past half a dozen stops and wind up getting off before her, which means I get to squeeze by her again.  WTF, lady?!  Do you just crave the feel of strangers awkwardly brushing by you?

Act 2)  Karma, I love you.  As we are riding and I am questioning what this chick's problem is, a short man with a messenger bag strapped across his back gets on the train and positions himself with one hand on the vertical bar and the other stretched awkwardly up to the overhead bar, his legs trying to stay planted broadly, a la Larry Craig.  He is stretched out like he's playing Twister.  Or maybe desperate to de-wedgie his underwear without actually using his hands.  Because this would be a hard position to maintain for anyone, much less someone of his shortitude, he is anything but stable, the messenger bag swings wildly behind him and very close to the face of my charming seatmate.  Repeatedly.  The trip gets a lot more entertaining.

Questions du jour (pick any or all): 

1. What is wrong with people?!
2. Does anyone ever play Twister except as an excuse for physical contact?
3. Why did our parents buy Twister?!??  What were they thinking?!
4. Should bags have an indicator to tell the carrier "Hey!!  I'm about to crash into someone!"?
5. Is karma real?

Plane Karma

A few weeks ago, hubby and I had seats on a plane to Atlanta but not together. We discussed this in line. The woman behind us heard us and offered to switch seats so that we could sit together. We did. It was nice of her. She didn't have to do it. She didn't lose anything as she went from a window seat to another window seat but it was nice of her all the same.

Yesterday, I am on a tiny plane to Nashville. I'd say 15 row. There are two seats on each side of the aisle. I have checked in early and traded my row 7 aisle seat for a row 1 aisle seat. Easy on. Easy off. I get into my seat. Two children settle in across the aisle. Their father has the window seat next to me. If I were a decent human being, I'd have offered this 6'4" guy the aisle seat so he could get closer to his kids. What can I tell you? I wanted the aisle seat. I like the aisle seat. Even though I'm only 5'4", I like to stretch out my legs, too. And I don't like to look out the window or have the scenery jumping suddenly next to me when there's turbulence. Makes me sick. Can you hear the rationalization here? How about in this, then: This guy could have gotten to the airport earlier than me and gotten the seat I switched into. It's his own damn fault.

So I let him fold himself into the window seat and I read my book. Or try to. His kids were not wild by any means but there was still a lot of communication going on across me.

"Dad, are we almost there yet?"
"No, we are not almost there yet."
"God, we've been on this plane forEVER!" [Ed. note: this, after 1/2 an hour]
"Keep your voice down."
"Dad..."
*no response*
"Dad..."
"What?"
"She's touching me."
"Are you two going to behave?!"

and on and on it went. I guess I should have paid the karma forward. At least it was a short flight and nobody actually screamed or cried. Not even me.