I forgot to check in for a Southwest flight the other day until about twelve hours after check-in had opened, which, of course, resulted in me receiving a very late boarding position.
This, in turn, led to me taking a middle seat on the plane. Which I didn’t mind—the flight was less than three hours—except that I ended up kind of rushing to the airport, Midway doesn’t have a lot of stalls, and I had to use the bathroom. So, after drink & snack service was finished, I made the guy in the aisle seat get up so I could use the bathroom.
I always feel bad doing this. Which is why usually, as a frequenter of airplane lavatories, I take care to get myself on an aisle seat. But I don’t know if I should or shouldn’t feel bad about it. At some point, a flight’s long enough that everyone on board has to use the bathroom at least once (or should at least get up and move around for a minute for the sake of appeasing all those folks warning about the dangers of sitting for too long). But where is that line?
Personally, when in an aisle seat, I use two hours as the limit. At some point, I happened upon this arbitrary deadline, which I also tend to use when driving (aggressive, I know, but when one drives for long periods of time as often as I do, one gets a little scared about bad habits leading to a premature demise). If the flight’s shorter than two hours, I sit through it unless I actively have to go. But if I’m not in an aisle seat, I don’t know where the line is. Three hours? Not many movies are longer than three hours. Four? I feel like a mid-size SUV’s gas tank gets you that far on the interstate. And how bad should one have to go in order to make the people beside them rise? Is it different if you’re in a window seat?
If you know, please let me know, because this has been eating at me for more than 24 hours now, and it is beginning to interfere with my day-to-day life.
