Flying and the unknown Seat Mate

Car rental - check. Airline tickets - check. Well, mostly “check,” anyway. All my airline miles are on Delta and Lufthansa..... requiring a plane change if going East to West. So, after doing some online research, I settled on flying United, using a relatives miles... trade. It was significantly cheaper than American, for when I wanted to go (no red eye flights). Only problem was, by the time I booked tickets, I couldn’t get two rows of three seats each anymore. So I settled on a row of three in the middle of the plane, and 2 across; theoretically leaving an unknown person to sit next to one of my children.

The pre-flight plans made sense; I would sit in the row of three with Max and Alexi, Niky as a lap baby. Jesse and Andy would sit across from me with the “unknown traveler.” Fair enough!

The guy that sat next to the older boys, wouldn’t stop talking, had B.O. and bad breath, and - to top it off - was a slightly scary retired Sp Ops. I put Jesse with Max and Alexi and took his seat. This guy wouldn’t stop talking, leaning too close for comfort, despite such nonverbal cues such as looking out the window and flipping through the SkyMall magazine. Making matters worse, scary Sp Ops guy had bad breath and B.O., and fervently believed in a couple of very weird conspiracy theories. He has proof, you see, but he cannot divulge too much as it gets into heavily guarded State secrets, and you never know who’s listening.
Nothing seemed to work.......... ahh my Andy. He started reading. He reads loudly. YES.

I looked at my kids. They were happily playing with their cars and trucks, Jesse and Andy listening to their IPODs and laughing, getting along with and caring for each other.

Scary Sp Ops guy got up and was in the aisle. He pulled a flight attendant into his orbit, using his arms and hand to gesticulate wildly as he continued, midway through a story about Clinton and Ghana and how.................. blah, blah, blah.