Some people have traveler’s stomach. I have traveler’s luck. And by luck, I mean bad luck. Taking the New York City subway to work every day, my train inevitably gets held in the station for hours due to a sick passenger or a police investigation. Flying to Ireland, I get seated between the collicky infant and the man with the tiny bladder. Riding a Greyhound bus to Providence, Rhode Island, chances are the AC won’t work and the bus will break down. My traveler’s luck has trailed me on every trip I’ve taken … until recently.
It was on a trip to St. Kitts in the West Indies that I learned how to turn my coach seating accommodations into a comfortable and relaxing (maybe even slightly luxurious, although I may be pushing it) journey.
My flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico was departing NYC’s JFK International Airport on a rainy morning last October and as I sat in my cab, laden down with my luggage, I waited for my traveling troubles to begin.
I got to the American Airlines terminal to find a line bulging with strollers, stressed mommies, and bagged down daddies. It was moving so slowly that it appeared be going backward. That’s when I spotted a most beautiful sight: a completely vacant area of impersonal computer check-in stations.
I never think to use these as I want a live fleshy person to tell me that my plane will take me away on vacation, and that my nearly six-foot frame is assured an emergency exit seat so that way my knees are not jammed up the seat in front of me for six hours. Besides, I have enough pre-recorded customer service messages in my life between movie times and cell phone issues. The live fleshy person option seemed less appealing today (perhaps because she was obscured by many other live fleshy people).
As I tap the buttons on the screen, I realize just how easy this is. Load your frequent flier number into the system, scan your passport, give it your confirmation number, number of bags, check-in … hmmm, choose your seat. The emergency exits are taken, yet right in front of my own eyes (not those of a moody and unhelpful agent), I see the seating chart of the entire plane and the last ten rows are completely vacant. I look over my shoulders and proceed to select an empty row near the very back of the plane as if I was undertaking an illegal activity. I take my print out and pray that within the next hour, no one else has the same stroke of genius.
