No exit

I've flown 1st Class only once, a flight from Denver to Boston while I was singing grad school auditions. My original flight was canceled due to a snowstorm and they bumped me to 1st Class on a flight leaving the next morning. I suppose I should have been upset that I had to reschedule my audition at NEC, pay for a hotel room, and buy a new toothbrush, but mainly I was ecstatic about the free upgrade.

The next morning, back at the airport, the lines were insanely long. Everyone else's flight had been canceled the day before, too, and people were crabby. Not to worry, though. I was ushered into a special short line just for 1st Class passengers (none of whom were crabby at all, I couldn't help but notice). I boarded the plane first, settled into my extra-wide extra-comfy seat, and was immediately offered a drink. In 1st Class, there were personal video screens with multiple movie choices. There were fluffy pillows and soft blankets. There were warm chocolate chip cookies with milk. There was a cute boy in the seat next to me. It was heaven.

Barring another lucky snowstorm, the closest I can get to heaven on an airplane now is sitting in an exit row. It used to be that the only way to get one was to get to the airport freakishly early. Luckily, I was often driven to the airports by my parents. "Building in a buffer" is one of Mama Bossy's favorite activities, so I inevitably arrived with a couple hours to spare, and often snagged a coveted exit row seat.

With the advent of online check-in, though, what used to depend on the luck of the draw has become a science. I try to be at my computer exactly 24 hours before my flight departs so that I can have my pick of seats. My first choice is always the seat in the second exit row that has no seat in front of it. It's always better to be in the second row, because the seats in front of an exit row usually can't recline. I like a window seat in a row where the aisle seat is already taken, because if the flight isn't full, the middle seat often stays empty.

I have a process, and it has quite a high success rate. Yesterday, however, I was destined to fail. I got bumped to an earlier flight from Chicago to Houston (yes, I had to fly through Houston to get to LA), so my precious exit row boarding pass got thrown out and I was stuck in a middle seat. Then on my flight to LA I was disappointed to find that the exit row had no extra leg room at all. Plus, I was in the row that doesn't recline, and I had to crane my neck at a bizarre angle to watch the movie (Martian Child—don't bother).

The only thing that made me feel better is that the woman across the aisle from me was having a much harder time. The seat in front of her must have been broken, because not only could it recline, but it could go back so far that the man sitting in it was almost horizontal. The poor woman was unsuccessfully trying to do work on her laptop, but she had to hold it on her armrest and sort of twist her entire torso to the side in order to look at it. She kept jabbing her knees into the back of the guy's seat, but he was fast asleep and snoring for the entire flight. When the flight attendant finally made him put his seat back into the upright position as we made our final descent into Los Angeles, she pried herself out of the contorted position she had been forced into for the previous 3 1/2 hours. The slight crick in my neck didn't seem so bad compared to that.

Schadenfreude. It's not warm cookies and milk, but it'll do for now.