The Not-So-Friendly Skies

As it happens, my full-time gig requires that I travel a lot. In airplanes. And not little jaunts from Boston to, say, Connecticut, but full-blown, cross-country extravaganzas to the southwest, midwest and west coastal U.S. So, yeah, when I sit my ass in an airplane, it's gonna be there for some time. And before each flight, I go through the same ritual in my mind: praying to the Gods of Air Travel that I find myself wedged comfortably between a couple hot females.

Interestingly, for all the travelling I do, such situations have been rare. In fact, according to my latest tally, they're practically non-existant. You'd think the odds would be in my favor, but no. Nothing. If there's an overweight grandpa or seven-foot-two Malaysian guy with a lisp and bad breath on the flight, they're next to me. Automatic. The two cute chicks from Detroit looped on airport tequila? They'll always end up at least seven rows away.

I used to play a game whereby I'd sit at the gate, scan the crowd, and select the hottest women in the group. I'd then try to mentally calculate the chances that said woman would end up sitting next to me. Now, just to make things easier, and to keep my mood on even keel, I simply pick out the most disgusting human beings in the lot, and quietly make plans for sitting next to them for the next six hours.