It’s My Seat

Posted: November 9, 2024 | Author: dana lange | Filed under: Uncategorized |1 Comment

If it’s February it must be the Bahamas…but wait it’s November. Yes, now I’m teaching at Lyford twice a year. Don’t hate me, but I just made it here by the skin of my pants. (Is that the right idiom?) No, by the skin of my teeth. Not sure where I got pants.

Russ didn’t feel like he could spend a second week of the year as my arm candy. He has his own work to do. But he did nicely drive me to the airport this morning. Glad I got there early because TSA was very interested in my round canister of car magnet mah Jongg card that I use for teaching. Apparently the X-ray machine can not see through a big wound up magnetic sign. Once they took it out of the mailing tube I carry it in they were fine, except now all those TSA agents want to learn Mah Jongg.

Thankfully our plane was on time because I had a very tight connection. I was sitting up front and when we landed in Atlanta at B-7 and I had to get to F-3, I knew it was going to be a run. I went fast and got to the gate with a half hour to go before take off.

They had already boarded the people in the gate. I was worried that all the overhead space would be taken, but apparently that was not the worry I should have had.

I walked up to the gate and they had this photo recognition software, so you didn’t even have to show your boarding pass. The machine did not recognize me. The gate agent asked for my passport. Another couple from my RDU flight came up behind me and got right on. I stood aside while they searched for me.

“Here is my boarding pass and seat assignment.”

“You aren’t on this flight.”

“What do you mean I’m not on this flight?”

“No one named Lange.”

The gate agent called over the manager. She looked and said, “We rebooked you on a later flight.”

“Why? It’s a half hour before take off and I am here.”

“We didn’t think you were going to make it.”

“But you didn’t rebook the other people on my flight from RDU who arrived at the gate after me and just got on.”

“Someone is in your seat.”

“Yes, MY seat. So they can be moved or taken off. You had no right to give my seat away this far ahead of time.”

They agreed and gave me paper boarding pass and told me to get on the plane.

As I boarded I mentioned to the flight attendants up front that there might be someone in my seat and explained what happened. The male attendant jokingly said, “Feel free to knock them around a little.”

I responded, “I won’t do that.” And he quickly said, “Please don’t. It was a joke.”

“I got that, but people do it nowadays.”

I looked down the aisle and could see the person sitting in my seat. “Would you mind telling her she is in my seat, I think it would go over better coming from you.”

The flight attendant agreed and moved them back to their middle seat they were supposed to be in two rows up. I am not sure why she got moved in the first place. But I got my original seat.

Thankfully it was an uneventful hour and thirty-nine minutes down here and Ruth E. was at the airport to pick me up.

All good in the Bahamas!

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