First, I took this photo on my phone on the DL (Fred would be so proud). So, I paid $10 extra to get priority boarding so that I could make sure that my suitcase could be in the overhead bin above my seat. Priority boarding comes after First Class and special needs passengers. So, I get to my row, stow my suitcase and then look at the guy sitting in the aisle seat. He's a young black man wearing a hoodie (with the hood up) and he's sagging his jeans--I can see at least 4 inches of boxers. So, when he tells me that he's paralyzed from the waist down, I don't immediately believe him. My first thought is that he's jacking with me. Thank God I did not say anything stupid. It soon becomes apparent that I'm going to have to climb over him to get to my window seat. Again thank God because I have long legs. It was fairly easy and I didn't step all over him. I stow my bag under the seat and stare out the window for about a minute before I realize that there is still the middle seat. And I start wondering who has that ticket and praying no one. But I know someone does because all the flight attendants have been saying it's a full flight. I hope that the passenger isn’t super old or very big because they’ll never get through. Thankfully, the lady that had the seat was neither of these, though she had to be in her sixties. She tosses her bag and book on the seat, and I pick them up to put them on my lap. Then she hikes her right leg over the guy and manages to land it on her seat. Her left hand is on the seat backs in front of us to steady herself. She then gives me her right hand and I pull her into the seat. Together, we manage to get her into the seat without crushing the guy or smacking anyone in the head. After that, the flight was pretty uneventful. When we landed in Flint, the older lady and I decided to just wait until the plane was empty—neither of us had any interest in climbing over that poor guy again. I was the last passenger off the plane, almost twenty minutes after it landed. And then things took a turn for the worse: ten minutes later, I’m driving around Flint looking for a gas station with an air hose that works because Discount Tire didn’t fix my tire with the nail in it last Tuesday because they were too busy selling me two new tires. After I filled the tire with air, I got back on the freeway, had a mini-meltdown and missed the exit for Sonic and had to wait all the way until Birch Run to get my strawberry limeade.
