I used to think there was a limit to how rude a person could be in public.
Then I met the man behind me on that flight.
It had already been a long day.
My back hurt, my neck felt stiff, and every time I shifted in my seat, I seemed to find another uncomfortable position.
The cabin was full.
People were trying to sleep, children were whispering to their parents, and the steady noise of the engines made it difficult to hear anything without leaning closer.
I had settled into the small space I had paid for.
Nothing special.
Just a seat, a window, and two armrests that I assumed I was entitled to use without having to negotiate with another passenger.
Four hours into the flight, something touched my elbow.
At first, I barely noticed.
I thought the passenger beside me might have moved accidentally.
Then I glanced down.
There was a bare foot resting on my armrest.
Five toes.
Right beside my arm.
I stared at it long enough to wonder whether I had misunderstood what I was seeing.
I hadn't.
The foot was attached to a leg stretching forward from the seat behind mine.
The man back there had apparently decided that the space between our seats was an extension of his own.
Then the smell reached me.
It wasn't something I could politely ignore.
I pulled my arm closer to my body and turned around.
The man looked to be in his mid-forties.
He wore a nice shirt, an expensive-looking watch, and large headphones that covered most of his ears.
His shoes were on the floor beneath his seat.
His bare foot was on my armrest.
He looked perfectly comfortable.
That was the part that bothered me almost as much as the foot itself.
He wasn't embarrassed.
He wasn't even checking to see whether anyone had noticed.
He seemed to believe that his comfort was the only thing worth considering.
I tried to keep my voice calm.
"Could you please take your foot off my armrest?"
He lifted one side of his headphones.
"What?"
I repeated myself.
He glanced at the foot, then at me.
"It's not on you."
I looked at the toes resting beside my elbow.
"It's on my armrest."
He gave a small shrug.
"My feet get uncomfortable in shoes."
For a second, I thought he was joking.
I waited for the smile that would tell me he understood how ridiculous the situation was.
It never came.
"Then you should take your shoes off and keep your feet in your own space," I said.
He leaned back.
"I have taken my shoes off."
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
Apparently, he thought that answered the question.
I tried once more.
"Your foot is in my seat area."
He gave me a look that suggested I was making a simple matter unnecessarily complicated.
"We're all sharing this airplane."
There it was.
The kind of statement people use when they want the benefits of shared space without accepting any responsibility for sharing it.
He glanced toward my other armrest.
"You've got another one over there."
I didn't answer immediately.
I was too surprised by the confidence with which he had said it.
He seemed to think that because I had another place to rest my arm, he had every right to occupy the first one with his foot.
I turned forward again.
I could have called a flight attendant right away.
Looking back, that probably would have been the simplest solution.
But I was tired, and I didn't want to spend the rest of the flight arguing with a stranger or explaining something that should have been obvious.
I moved my elbow away from the foot.
That was my first mistake.
Not because I owed him a confrontation, but because he interpreted my silence as permission.
He settled deeper into his seat.
Then he put his headphones back on.
A moment later, his toes moved.
Not much.
Just a small wiggle, as though he were getting comfortable in his own private lounge.
I faced the window and tried to concentrate on anything else.
The clouds outside had turned into a flat white blanket.
A flight attendant pushed a cart along the aisle.
Someone a few rows ahead asked for water.
I watched the small details because I didn't want to keep looking at the foot beside me.
For several minutes, I managed to forget it was there.
Then the smell returned.
I shifted toward the window.
The man behind me didn't move.
I told myself to let it go.
People could be inconsiderate.
People could be strange.
Sometimes, the best thing to do was simply refuse to let another person's behavior ruin your day.
I repeated that to myself until I almost believed it.
Then the airplane shook.
It wasn't a dramatic drop, but enough turbulence to make the cabin rattle and several passengers pause what they were doing.
My arm moved against the armrest.
The man's toes brushed my sleeve.
I turned around again.
This time, I wasn't interested in making excuses for him.
"Please move your foot."
He pulled his headphones down around his neck and sighed.
The sigh was so exaggerated that the woman sitting beside me looked up from her book.
"What's the problem now?" he asked.
"Your foot keeps touching me."
He looked down at his own toes as if he had only just discovered them.
"It's a foot."
I waited.
He continued.
"You're behaving like I've put it on your plate."
The woman beside me lowered her book.
Her expression changed immediately.
"That's really gross," she said.
The man laughed.
Not an uncomfortable laugh.
Not the kind of laugh people make when they realize they've gone too far and don't know how to recover.
He genuinely seemed amused by us.
"You both need to calm down."
I felt my face grow warm.
I hated that.
I hated being made to feel unreasonable for asking someone to keep his bare foot away from my arm.
I hated that the woman beside me had to become involved simply because she was sitting close enough to witness it.
Most of all, I hated how certain he seemed that neither of us would do anything.
I looked at him for another second.
Then I faced forward.
"All right," I said.
He seemed pleased.
He raised his headphones over his ears and returned to whatever he had been listening to.
I could almost imagine him telling himself that he had handled the situation perfectly.
The woman beside me looked at me.
I could see the question on her face.
I gave her a small shake of my head.
Not yet.
I wasn't ready to involve a flight attendant, and I wasn't going to spend the next several hours trading insults with a man who thought basic manners were optional.
I leaned back carefully.
The foot remained where it was.
A few minutes passed.
Then ten.
I tried to read the safety information in the seat pocket, though I had already read it earlier.
I watched the flight map on the screen in front of me.
I adjusted the air vent.
Anything to keep from turning around again.
But the foot was always there, occupying the corner of my vision.
Eventually, the man stopped moving.
His breathing became slower.
His head tilted toward the window beside him.
He had fallen asleep.
His headphones stayed on.
His shoes remained under the seat.
And his bare foot continued to rest on my armrest as if it had been placed there permanently.
I looked at it.
Then I looked at the woman beside me.
She had returned to her book, although she was holding it lower now.
I leaned slightly toward her.
"Can I ask you something?"
She looked up.
"Sure."
I nodded toward the space between our seats and the man's outstretched leg.
"Would you help me with something if he wakes up?"
Her eyebrows rose.
"What kind of something?"
I lowered my voice.
I had an idea.
It wasn't complicated.
It didn't require an argument, a raised voice, or a dramatic scene in the middle of a crowded airplane.
It only required a little patience.
I explained it quietly.
At first, she stared at me.
Then her eyes widened.
She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh loudly enough to wake the sleeping man.
"You're serious?" she whispered.
I nodded.
She covered her mouth with one hand.
"Oh, I like you."
I almost laughed myself.
She glanced at the man behind me, then back at me.
"Tell me what you need me to do."
I explained the last part.
She gave me a small, conspiratorial nod.
"Absolutely."
For the first time in nearly an hour, I felt the tension leave my shoulders.
The man continued sleeping.
He had no idea that the two women he had dismissed as oversensitive were now working together.
I checked that the aisle was clear.
Then I quietly began putting my little plan into place.
I kept my movements small and careful.
The woman beside me shifted her position, making it harder for anyone behind us to see what I was doing.
She didn't say another word.
Neither did I.
Less than a minute later, everything was ready.
I settled back into my seat.
My hands rested in my lap.
The foot was still there.
But I no longer felt like the person trapped in the situation.
I glanced at the woman beside me.
She was staring straight ahead, fighting a smile.
I looked out the window.
And I waited.
Click here to continue reading: PART 2: I Had Spent an Hour Being Polite to a Stranger Who Mistook My Silence for Weakness, So I Chose a Different Response
Four Hours Into a Crowded Flight, I Discovered That the Man Behind Me Had Decided My Armrest Belonged to Him
Part 1 of 8
