I have been on a lot of airplanes. I’ve had wonderful flights, namely where the seat(s) adjacent to me have been empty, and I’ve been able to exhale and bask in the luxury of space, and once in a blue moon, I’ve had the opportunity to sit in first class and enjoy a cocktail or two.
However, most of the time, I’ve had less-than-wonderful flights, whether it’s been on account of assholes who don’t understand the rules of the armrests, shitheads who pack too much shit and clog up all available space, or fat fucks who ooze over armrests, seats, aisles and encroach upon the personal space of everyone around them. Such is more common than not, because the vast majority of people are simply stupid and have zero understanding of not just airplane etiquette, but just how to conduct one’s self when rammed into tight quarters with other miserable travelers.
Amidst my travels, I have been no stranger to the unruly child in the row behind me that thinks the seat in front of them is the FIFA World Cup and decides to mash the kick buttons like they’re Chun-Li. Under the standby circumstances I’ve flown so frequently in the past, there was little I could actually do about this, since I was vastly less human than my counterparts that paid substantially more than I did, but over the last year of actually paying real fares to fly, I have been no stranger to the turnaround and glare at the negligent parents who neglect bad behavior.
Needless to say, seat kicking ranks somewhere in between being too fat and insisting on existing in one seat and releasing snakes on a plane, when it comes to the worst people on an airplane. Which is why it’s so easy to applaud JetBlue when they removed a family of five from an airplane after a one-year old kicked the seat in front of it.