BELLY BOUNCE

It’s a 6AM flight. I didn’t sleep the night before. At all. No lie.

“A little tired” doesn’t adequately describe.

When I booked the flight, the system that enables you to choose your seat was down, thus no seat assignment was issued with my e-ticket. I received my seat number from the United touch monitor I used to check-in. 25B. A middle seat.

If you’re a middle seat person, I’d like to know, because if you are, you’re the first one I’ve ever met. No one yens for the middle spot, and when it’s me that’s stuck center, because I'm small, the people on either side of me count their plentiful stars of fortune that I’m the one between them, taking up less of their space than a larger person would.

Bleary-eyed and frightened by the possibility that I could be flanked by two big, fat stinky men, I shuffle down the aisle to the back of the plane to collapse in 25B.

My eyes alight on the 25th row and see that the first of my close-proximity traveling companions is seated by the window. He is slight and the ear buds in his ears hint to me that he won’t be a chatter. He doesn’t even glance up as I settle in my seat. Perfecto. I buckle my belt and wait.

Gripping the arm wrests so as not to bite my nails in public, I ogle the United Flight 1442 passengers moseying towards the back of the plane.

I see a seriously corpulent man wearing a flannel shirt doing it’s best to stay snapped shut. Don’t sit by me. Don’t sit by me. Don’t sit by me . . . the little voices in my head chant. He stops at row 22. Saved.

A man with long hair that I am positive hasn’t been washed since 1992 totes his patch-emblazoned backpack down the aisle. Don’t sit by me. Don’t sit by me. Don’t sit by me . . . my voices chant again. He stops at row 23. Again: saved.

Then I spy a woman with a lap child.

My voices don't even bother with the inner chant. Without a glimpse of her boarding pass, I know their seat assignment’s number and letter: 25C. And though it’s a rare thing indeed, I am right.

Though I’m pretty sure the regulations state something like one carry-on and one personal item is all that each person is permitted to bring on the plane, the mother has three big bags. Two she stuffs under the seat in front of her, eradicating any space for her feet. The third she jams into an overhead bin five rows up the aisle. The one crammed in the overhead bin is without a doubt the diaper bag.

She and her pajama-clad kid sit down in the aisle seat I’ve started to salivate over. While we taxi on the tarmac, I watch the woman drug her daughter. And because sometimes even the unluckiest among us have to have things swing their way now and then, the child passes right out and stays that way for most of the 2 hour flight. Even the mom manages to snatch a little shut eye.

I, however, sleep deprived and never able to sleep sitting up, bob back and forth with fatigue, gripping my own iPod as if it will somehow assuage my fatigue.

About thirty minutes before our scheduled arrival, Window Man has to pee (or do something else necessitating a restroom). The mother and her sleeping child arise to let him out and step into the aisle. As I follow them out, my shoe gets caught in one of the straps of one of the mother’s bags, and down, down, down I begin to go.

In the aisle, I tumble backwards and find myself bouncing off of something. Someone.

The adipose man in the flannel top was ambling from the restroom back to his seat. I had fallen right into his sizeable gut, bounced off of it and landed on the floor.

I didn’t know fat bellies were bouncy, and though falling to the floor in view of fifteen or so travelers ought to somewhat mortify the faller, the belly bounce was too funny to keep quiet about. So on a 6AM flight where many a traveler slept, I let out giant guffaw followed by some rolling giggles as I rise from the aisle’s probably-cleaned-once-annually carpet.

(If you know me, you know that while I tried to steady myself and get out of the way of the slight man needing to relieve himself, I vigorously apologized to everyone who saw me trip and bounce.)

Once the fall is through, Window Man is resettled and I'm back in my seat, I find myself curiously alert and energized. Now I'm ready for the day. Ready for my meeting.

So if ever you find yourself sleepy on a plane, I recommend you bounce off a belly. It's much more effective than caffeine.