I wonder if anyone here will own up to being a seat-recliner, and defend their position. Its kind of like how smokers will NEVER own up to throwing their butts out of moving car windows...yet it happens constantly, and right in front of me. Hey buddy, the world is not your toilet.

Back on point - I don't recline. On one memorable flight, one dude in front of me nearly cracked my kneecap in his haste to do so. I must a made an entirely involuntary noise - if memory serves it might have been something along the lines of "SweetmotherofgodmyKNEE" ... whereupon this saintly individual felt it necessary to explain to me that it was his his right, practically his OBLIGATION, you understand, to recline. If you werent SUPPOSED to recline, he explained with fire in his eyes, the seats WOULDN'T recline. And since they did, in fact, recline, by god, he was going to do exactly that.

I leave you with the words of the Zen poet Lemmy Kilminster (of Motorhead) - "Just cuase you got the power, that dont mean you got the right."

Hoping one of your list of five is people who bring the own personal bedding on the flight. Hypo-allergenic my ass.

My, was I raving?

I'm in a different category: The Reluctant and Gentle But Unapologetic Recliner. The reason I and my Category 2(a) breathren put our seats back is to give the person behind us a chance to adjust their position to accommodate the three inches we are stealing from their space. We do not look back guiltily, however. We understand that the person behind us could regain the Lost Three Inches by putting their own seat back. Their martyr complex is not our problem, we Non-Guilty Number-Two's feel.

Neither is it our problem that the martyrs are blaming us, rather than the airlines, who:

A. Design the seats to recline.
B. Design the seats to be so unconfortable upright that we have to sit like the Church Lady. (Often, putting the chair back HALFWAY makes us feel human again.)
C. Jam all the seats so close together to make an extra dollar at the expense of goodwill among their customers.

As long as we keep blaming one another for this admittedly hideous condition, nothing will change. If we start blaming the airlines for the problem, nothing will change either.

I'm also concerned that if everyone went to the bathroom to pass a little gas, the lines would be incredibly long. But I won't get into my Turn the Air Vent On Full Blast and Hope for the Best Strategy in any detail .....

Sorry Dave....Steve is right about this one. Shoving your seat back into someone's space is hateful.

I am borderline claustrophobic. So the seat reclining issue is important to me.

Here's what I do, Steve. When someone begins reclining, I lift my legs up and force me knees into the back of the chair. The pressure from their reclining seat actually holds my legs in place and stops the backward movement. (Hey, it's my version of airplane yoga.)

If they feel my knees in their back and glare at me, I say, "sorry, I'm 6'1 inches tall. You back up into my space, you get what you deserve."

As for the farting...just pick up a magazine and begin waving it very dramatically, as if to push the noxious fumes back into their space. Everyone will see you doing this and know who the culprit is.

Mark

I wonder if we might hear from air travelers who are not terrified, drunk, or "borderline claustrophobic."

My answer to the person in front of me shoving his seat into my personal space is to get my 4-year-old to sit on my lap and continually kick the back of his seat. When he looks back I just shrug as if to say, "Kids will be kids." And almost without fail the person in front of me is of the ilk that wants to shout HOW CAN YOU BRING A 4 YEAR OLD ON MY PLANE!!!

The beauty of this whole scenario is that you'll never see these people again.

By the way, Mark, there is no such thing as borderline claustrophobic. Just say it, "My name is Mark and I'm claustrophobic." There, doesn't that feel better?

David - you don't feel guilty because you weren't brought up Catholic. Get some guilt, will you?

I'm throwing in with David Murray on this one. I, too, recline the seat, slowly and, I hope, considerately. I have opted not to do so when I've noticed the person behind me is large of size (as am I), but I do not fault the person in front of me for reclining their chair as is their right. And I do believe it is a right, and don't believe anyone honestly believes it's their obligation. I agree that the fault lies with the airline designers who also saw fit to design a tray table that reclines with the seat it's attached to, though I've noticed one or two that blessedly did not.

I do not pass gas on airlines unless I'm in the bathroom, and find those who do reprehensible unless they are of advanced age and perhaps are unaware that they've passed (gas, that is....or otherwise as the case may be, but that's a whole other issue). So I disagree that the two practices are always married up in individuals.

I will throw in wholeheartedly with Steve on the despicable nature of those who cut lines and ride the shoulder for miles to the exit ramp. More to the point, those who do a variation of both, driving all the way up to and cutting into the front of the line of cars that have stacked up in approach for the exit they knew was coming. I often wish I could accost these people and confront them with whether they would cut in line a the movie theater. However, Steve's narrative has made me realize they would. So my resolution is reduce the stress in my life by dropping any notion of getting these people to see the error of their ways. And grant that, of course, some of them might have not realized their exit was coming so soon (I would still say proceed to next exit and learn from boneheaded level of awareness), or might have an emergency.

Ahhh, I feel better already...

I have a similar solution to the seat recliners that I have employed for years...Chair Rocking. The moment the bastard in front of me starts to recline (as happened two days ago coming back from Dallas) the chair rocking is on like Donkey Kong. Chair rocking is when you get up to go to the bathroom you give a forearm shiver to the top of the person's seat back in front of you waking them up from their selfish slumber.

Another thing I do is to jam my knee into the back of their seat and start shaking my leg as if I was having a seizure. When they glance back I just act like I am really into mp3 player.

These things don't usually work, but they sure make me feel better and keep me occupied.

Well, this is a very good and healthy discussion.

Neruda, I knew you wouldn't be a seat recliner. You're too noble and good-hearted. Same with you, Mark. And I like the idea of lifting my knees up into the seat as the recline it.

That strategy wouldn't work for me, however, because I'm too fat to get my knees up that high. But since I'm taking boxing lessons now and getting in shape, I'll try that.

And I only wish I had a four year old that I could cart around with me to kick all the obnoxious people I meet in airports.

Finally . . . it does not surpise me one iota that you are a Seat Recliner, Murray. Had you come out here and claimed anything else, I would have called you a liar.

You, sir, are a Seat Recliner AND a Gass Passer AND a Drink Spiller. I have flown enough with you to know these facts to be true.

Steve C.

I can't wait for the remaining four posts in this series. I would have to put myself in the category with David. I'm not ashamed to admit my reclining tendencies. I do try to wait until the food/beverage service is finished before easing back three inches into still-not-comfortable-but-semi-tolerable position. I wouldn't want my backyard neighbor to spill their ginger ale and pretzels.

I'm flying to New York next week to see my brother. Maybe I'll sit upright this time. I can't promise you anything on the gas though...

Steve-hilarious post as usual! I can see both sides of this argument. While I don't jump to recline my seat the minute you are allowed, I fall into a subcategory --the Slightly Recline, But Not Usually All the Way Flyer.

What happens is everyone else around me begins to recline, so I wait to assess the degree to which everyone else is reclining. If everyone else is decent about it, I usually push the button just to release my seat from the unnaturally rigid upright angle, but do not actually push back in the seat...thus only slightly reclined. However, if the person in front of me reclines more severely, then I slightly recline somewhere between just pushing the button and all the way back, depending on degree of severity.

If my seat space has been completely compromised by the person in front of me and I have to go all the way back myself, I feel bad for the person behind me and spend most of the flight jamming my knees and table tray into the person sitting in the seat in front of me just like everyone else who has posted here.

Two years ago on a 10-hour flight from Switzerland to New York, I was seated on the aisle behind a woman from Africa, who despite having two seats together and no seatmate, insisted on reclining the seat in front of me all the way back practically touching my nose, but not the seat in front of my husband (that one was just slightly reclined). And to top it all off, she was sitting across both seats and had her bare feet on the arm rest in front of me, in my line of sight. Why was this bad, you ask? Because she had the longest, gnarliest toes I have ever seen on a human. She could have done a Rubik's Cube or typed 50 words a minute with those toes...they were bizarre and freaky to look at, all curled over the arm rest. I muttered curses about her to my husband the whole flight, but wouldn't let him make a scene about it with the flight attendant, because quite frankly, I was kind of afraid of the toes. Turns out, we heard the woman speaking English at the end of the flight, so I assume she understood my many rants about the seat angle and left it that way just to be pissy!

OK, thanks for letting me get that off my chest...

I have to agree with you about the retchedness of seat recliners...and although I have yet to see your other top 4 people, I would have to put them at the top of my list. #2 would be nasty flight attendants who take the little bit of power afforded to them for the right reasons and do all the wrong actions with it. Anyway...I hate, hate, hate when someone reclines their seat on to me, and I do everything in my power to make it known, as well. Actually, once, on a flight from Florida to London, a non-seat recliner asked a nasty seat recliner to kindly move up even just a smidgen so they could move in their own seat, and the seat recliner told them it was their right to recline and they would not move. Jerk.

Steven, I have spilled only two drinks in your lap on airplanes. That both drinks were full gin and tonics, one on the way to New York on a business trip and one on the way home from the same trip, is immaterial.

But what about the time when, against my strong counsel, you insisted on checking your radiator halfway through a communications barnstorming tour, and you soaked me head to toe in my new green suit with hot antifreeze?

Let's close this can of worms while we still can, shall we?

Oh . . . I wish the readers of this blog could have been there when I doused David with antifreeze.

We were on our way to Iowa to deliver our first-ever co-speech together (this was more than 10 years ago, I think).

We pulled over for gas, and since my radiator had been making noise, I decided to check the water/antifreeze level.

David told me not to. I rarely listen to David. So he said, "Suit yourself," or something like that, and then backed up four steps, away from the radiator.

Sure enough, as soon as I pop the lid on the radiator, a green gyser shoots up . . . only it shot up high enough that it actually went over me, and drenched David.

Then we went and delivered the speech, antifreeze and all.

And, at the speech, our two very different writing/speaking styles came out.

We were talking to a group at John Deere, and David led the speech with a very heartwarming, moving story about how, when he was a kid working on a golf course, he used a John Deere tractor, and the great memories he had of those innocent times. I think a few people may have had a tear in their eye.

I then stood up and said:

"I have some memories of a John Deere tractor myself, from my time at Northern Illinois University, up in farm country.

But they involve waking up half naked on a tractor seat with a townie girl and a bottle of Southern Comfort . . . so I don't think I can share my memories the way David did."

And thus, two careers were born . . .

Steve C.

How to deal with the gas passers...reach into the quart-sized plastic zip bag in your carry-on luggage and pull out your 2 oz. sample size of ghastly floral-smelling cologne and spritz it into the air around the suspected gas-passer. A similar technique sometimes works for gas-passers who reside in Cubicle Corporate America, too.

As for shoulder-huggers and other obnoxious drivers...I am trying to get my teen-aged son to invent a bird crap cannon. A cannon would be mounted on the top of your car (or perhaps two, one each on the front and back bumpers) and whenever some driver does some crappy thing to you, you let loose with a gentle volley from the bird crap cannon. It would mar the offending car, but in a subtle way. The obnoxious driver might not even notice the bird crap until he (and it's ALWAYS a he) got to his destination, parked and stepped outside to the foul odor and brown and white stain.

Questions...Did the John Deere company ever ask you two back? How can I ever look at a John Deere tractor again in the same way after that story? And is anyone else wondering why David Murray had on a GREEN suit? Pray tell, what shade of green? Mint? Jade? Auqamarine?

Don Quixote observes, Steve, that the trail is better than the Inn. The journey prepares us for the always-receding destination. We learn how to do what we have to do when we land, by our conscious response to the accidents that happen while we're getting there. We're mainly getting there to teach communications skills, which involves us in diverse personalities, negotiating conflict, aligning one person's or group's needs with another's, courtesy, service, flexible skills, clariy, conformance to norms, and the like.

Let's say someone in 23A had a pizza at O'Hare's incomparable food court 45 minutes before boarding the 727 now on its laconic descent to, for example, Cleveland, and now decides, to use your word, "fart." Might that universal experience not trigger in you, along with an understandable revulsion, a certain happiness in another's joy in digestion, and even the invitation to reaffirm a universal mandate: to feed the hungry?

Again, let's say a man seated in front of you is large enough so that they push him through tunnels to clean them out is traveling to a convention to deliver an address on that very topic and decides to recline his seat. Doesn't the pain in your knees and the necessity of having to balance your two gins on your thighs without staining this month's copy of "Maxim" put you somehow in mind of the convenience of home, where you - we - can recline at will, dip our Tostino "Scoops" into Pace Picante mild salsa, maybe with a little grated cheddar (who's the victim?) and watch the Cubs lose yet another game, mainly because of weak middle relief pitching, but also because of "batters" who display sporadic power rather than run production in the middle of the order and, to some extent, simply, a market that feeds the consumer's appetitite for mediocrity?

To put it simply, the shock of the other on the way to the gig, brings us face-to-face with the guy, you, going to the gig and why he's, you're, going. The farters and recliners are the mirror of identity, the gift of accidental recognition, the miracle of authenticity.

Did I read you right?

Pat

Ugh seat recliners! I normally fall into the 3rd category. However, I make an exception when traveling for business because our corporate travel lady ALWAYS puts me in the very last row. So yes, I recline my seat in those instances, but it only goes back about an inch before hitting the wall. The worst reclining experience I ever had was about two months ago on an LA to Chicago flight. The guy in front of me reclined all the way then moved in his seat in time to the music on his iPod. So the entire flight my tray table was shaking and the seat kept banging into my knees. I've never taken revenge on a seat recliner before, but I have another Dayton to LA trip coming up in two weeks and you better believe I'll be out to gain back my stolen 3 inches of seat space if I have a seat recliner in front of me. Seat recliners- you're on notice.

Eileen, it was an olive suit, and it was handsome. We were NOT invited back, partly because my normally erratic speaking style was made positively spastic by regular checks to confirm that Steve's antifreeze was not burning holes in my jacket.

For the record, I was invited back to John Deere . . . eight years later. Regular readers of the blog will remember that I was coming back from speaking at a John Deere communications conference last year when I was pulled over for speeding, found out my license was suspended, couldn't find my insurance card, had my car impounded on the spot, and was taken to jail.

Cindy had to rent a car and drive three hours to come and get me.

Those trips to John Deere . . . something always seems to happen.

Steve C.

So when are we going to use our leverage as communications experts to tell those (insert rude word here)s at the airlines that the first one to give us some (insert another rude word) leg room will get all our business?

Answer: Never. The airlines only have to please their executive-class passengers who cheerfully pay three or four times what we can afford 'cause it ain't their money. Grrr. Still, it won't happen if we don't try.

My Ultimate Seat Recline story is one of physiology. Namely, failing the opportunity to read the bumps on someone's head to determine their "likelihood of reclining" I have come to rely on their sartorial discernment and general physical type.

There appears to be a strong correlation between sloppily dressed people and reclining.

Aboard a NW flight from Seattle to Minny-ho-ho, I settled into 11A intent on eating the marginal foodstuffs, quaffing a beer and a shot, and falling asleep for the balance of the overnight flight.

However, as the flight attendant gave the next-to-last wrap-up speech, she mentioned that a flight from Hawaii was running a little late, that there were 12 passengers from that flight booked onto ours, and that we'd wait.

Moments later, the first batch arrived. Three very "ahem" large people... they sat in 10A-C, and immediately reclined.

As there was no one next to me, I didn't fret too very much, saying to myself, "well, I'll be sleeping soon, so it's doesn't really matter that the dandruffed and greasy-haired manatee ahead of me is threatening to break my nose with his seat-back."

During this pleasant reverie, the remaining Turistas arrived. Just when I began to raise the armrest with a happy smile, the Lead Manatee poured himself into the B seat.

Ever wondered what effect a week of fatty food in a warm climate, lubricated with suntan oil and Bombay Gin, does to one's personal odor? I found out.

Just what I wanted! The flight attendant pitied me, and demonstrated that pity, handing me 4 bottles of scotch.

It all started with that dang recliner!

Re: Eileen's comments:

And is anyone else wondering why David Murray had on a GREEN suit? Pray tell, what shade of green? Mint? Jade? Auqamarine?

I immediately had an image of the restaurant owner in Good Morning Viet Nam---"How you like my new green suit, huh?" who was always asking Forrest Whittaker (not Tucker, right? always get those two confused...anyhow, the non-F Troop guy) for "naked pictures of Walter Brennan."

I assume David didn't resemble this image AT ALL.

But you would think that John Deere would have appreciated him sticking with the green theme?

It's nice to know that those of us who are of advanced age are perhaps unaware that we've passed gas. Next time I fart on an airplane, I'll just shrug my shoulders and say, "You know how it is with us seniors, we don't know when we fart."

Will

I always feel like I've learned something just by reading Patrick Williams' entries. For one such as myself who strives to write at a sixth-grade level so his readers can better understand (try telling an engineer we have to make your writing simple so the masses can grasp your concepts), it's different and refreshing to read the observations of Don Quixote, especially since I'm one of those people who view the destination as the goal and just want the gosh darn journey to end.

And yes, the green suit caused me to pause. Those of us who went through our peacock era decades ago can only wonder at the length of his hair at the time and how wide the lapels were. But I'm sure it was stylish for the times.

I am sure hoping that another category of Airport People is going to be Parents Who Refuse to Control Their Children.

Recently flew from Phoenix to Cleveland with a cherub named Aidan who will be burned into the memories of my traveling companions forever.

OH MY GOD -
I wish you hadn't gotten me started on this subject. Once upon a time it was fun to fly. Or at least it wasn't the hell it is nowadays. Airlines were appreciative of passengers and did everything possible to make you comfortable. Flights were never full. Air meals were eatable. Passengers AND flight attendants were courteous. Drinks - including alcohol - were free. All that has changed.

I fly a lot, frequently on long-haul flights. I HAVE LOTS OF COMPLAINTS but will restrict this post on only one: THE LAP CHILD.

What idiot thinks this is a good idea?
1. The airline doesn't get the revenue for an additional passenger.
2. They always put lapkids right behind first class in the elite section so they bother the most important customers.
3. The most vunerable passengers are the LEAST PROTECTED.

If there are laws about seat belts and car seats, why is it OK for babies to be held on airplanes?

TOTALLY REDICULOUS!

Kevin - Nice job on the subject-verb agreement in "For one such as myself who strives. . . " Most people would have gotten that wrong. Good job.

How about this: "Are you one of those parents who (think or thinks) (his, her, his or her, or their) kids are exceptional?"?

What's the right verb, pronoun, and placement of the question mark in or out of the quotes? Would you have included the comma after "pronoun" in the previous sentence?

Pat

. . . one of those parents who thinks his or her kids. . ." And no, I wouldn't include a comma.

Of those parents who think . . . are you one.

To the passenger who's knees I smash when I recline my seatback. You deserve it. My guess is that you used what should be your legroom (under my seat) for your carry-on luggage.

Way to go John - time to stand up to the small-minded people!

You pay next to nothing for air travel, destroy the environment, are happy to eat the rubbish that airline dish out and winge to your friends about it....

It's crap flying - it's a bad thing to do and if you endure a little pain, well hey quit griping!

Direct action is the only way forward - slap the recliner in front if he's annoying you (that will get you moved pronto) and shout "hey someone farted here" whilst pointing at your suspected culprit

Colin
(I'm off to my meeting of 'Kick the moaners annonymous')