The Window seat

 

Recently I travelled to Himachal for an event that we do annually for our customers, but this post is not about the event but about the journey and as the title suggests it is about the Window seat.

While booking the ticket I went through the options trying to understand how much extra the airline wants me shell out for the window seat, though I have always allowed auto assignment to do this for me and I have been lucky but still I was not willing to take this chance as this route provides some great views of the snowcapped mountains, unfortunately there were no seats available to purchase so I decided I will try some different tactics this time as I ended up getting the isle seat and sometime people are willing to exchange isle with the window seat.

We boarded the flight and to my happiness a senior citizen came up to my seat and asked me to move over as he was assigned that window seat, I politely asked him sir getting in/out will be a problem in case you wanted to use the restroom and I am willing to give you my isle seat in case you wanted to? No thank you! he replied.

We settled down with the announcement “all ground staff to deplane” and to my surprise my fellow passenger who sat on the window seat had already shut the window shades and was dreaming (half asleep), airhostess walked over and reminded him to open the shades which he did for a few minutes and with the announcement “cabin crew to your stations for take-off” he went ahead to shut it again 😊 and sleep. 25 minutes into the flight refreshments were served and my neighbor didn’t even bother to open his eyes and woke up only after the announcement “Cabin crew to your stations for landing”.

To my surprise he said it was a long flight and I was like ‘Yes, and you made the most of it by sleeping’. Out of curiosity I asked him sir if you were to sleep the whole journey why did you take that seat as I wanted to sit there, he told me a few reasons why he did that, and they are as below.

-          He didn’t like people disturbing him while going out and coming in from the washrooms.

-          He absolutely didn’t like the food trolley brushing his elbows while moving through the isle.

Upon concluding this he asked me what was my objective behind getting that seat? I said sir, the reasons are very small, but I want to you consider next time if someone makes the same request again.

-          VIP access to the cloud – you are closer to the God and for a sales guy reaching the far end of the sales quarter this gives an amazing chance to appeal God closely for a breakthrough quarter.

-          Pardon me – Since you are away from the cabin attendant standing in the isle every time you respond to them you can start with PARDON ME gives a kind of cool feeling and makes you appear more sophisticated 😊

-          Instagram ka pressure – clear goal of beating my colleagues who have million posts from the window seat.

-          The deplane race – once we land, wait for the whole plane to deplane rather than standup as soon as the plane comes to a halt.

Once I was done and under an impression that he has heard me well I asked him Sir what is your stand on this? He said, “apologies but the battery of my hearing aid ran out as soon as you said the first sentence” and since then he has no idea of what I said apart from seeing my lips move. He assured me that he will catch up with me and discuss this further so that he does not take away someone’s pleasure ride into the clouds.