Middle Life Crisis

Haven't meant too many people who really like sitting in the middle seat during a four flight, but with a sense of understanding as well as a bit of kindness everyone in the row tries to make the best of the situation, yet ocassionally there has to be a person striving towards becoming a cog in their corporation who is in the midst of an excessive string of motivational speaker readings who has gone on a total bender in the asserting of a private power dynamic. The description: semi balding, male, of medium height, who dresses in that bland nuetral tan slacks and light colored shirt, married, but to give the guy credit he had a goatee for that added creative streak. When I encounter people with such passion to make every little movement for space into a battle, sleep is the first counter on my part, rather just lean over on the guy with all my dead weight, what do I care at that point, good for a couple of hours, don't have to bother with being edged out off an arm rest which is usually relinquished with no problems, it does suck to sit in the middle seat, cramped between two other people, especially when they are the size of NFL starting offensive linemen, which happened to me some years back. The trio of us could have blocked for Manning, Brady, or whoever, I was expecting the plane to flip over while the effects of weekend of work/partying drove through my mind like slow forming cement in my viens. There was really no sitting, sort of just wedging inbetween a pair of enormous shoulder blades, but a mutual understanding had been achieved, the three of us laughed about it throughout the trip while sharing a few drinks, nothing a bit of conversation can't help, it really melts away the reality of being couped up in a metal tube for an extended period of time.

Still, no comraderie today, only a middle management flesh bot who was plagarizing Vince Lombardi quotes and Tony Robbins motifs for some future powerpoint presentation to his underlinks back in Illinois somewhere. Granted I slept through about half the flight, but for the other two hours this guy kept trying to wedge my arm further and further into my ribs, then the periodical standing up every fifteen minutes began, whether to grab materials for the overhead storage bins to frequent bathroom trips, this person was attempting to give me the ol stare down routine, which amounted to nothing more than watching a confused animal go through their series of physical routines to establish some sort of primitive territorial pissing which he himself could only make sense out of inside the airplane. All I could do was watch while hoping to gain a bit of humor from his antics. Mr. Middle Management did not let me down, in fact everytime the man walked out into the aisle his brain must have been processing other things, cause he would rise just as another passenger or stewardess would pass, creating a bottleneck in the aisle walkway, of course Mr. Middle stood their working on two levels of thought, one, dominance, two common courtesy, in the end number one, seized the day, only making the impass more drawn out than necessary.

Why not, humanity is here for my amusement, this has already been well established and over documented, today would be no different, this is compelling, exciting, and fun, watching Mr. Middle move through the steps of metamorphsis from the weak little catapiller to the empowered butterfly, where he happen to be stage wise at the time took a bit more observation to establish. After everyone returned to their seats, the battle of the arm rests continued, only to be nuetralized by the old leg touching leg tactic, skillfully employed but yours truly. If all else fails go for the homophobic angle, you might get in a fight, but most of the time, types like Mr. Middle will go into full retreat, his personal space had finally been violated, so I kept up the attack, just to let him know who is in control here, what did I care, this goof is nothing but a low grade psychological experiment, sleep would have been preferrable or writing, but watching this guy type up 20th century self empowerment phrases into powerpoint slides wants to make me see what he is really made of in the mind. But even this runs its course, just land the plane, there are more important things going down, like having a beer or watching sports or interacting with the general public. Finally, the plane lands and during the frey that exists inbetween deplaning Mr. Middle made a final move in the search for dominance asking me to get his bag from the overhead storage bin. I told him, "Get out of here." Some people have to go down with the ship, Mr. Middle was no different, just uncomfortable with his lot in life, like most people, but with very little talent, drive, and or character to change it.