Waiting turned out to be harder than I expected.
The man behind me slept peacefully.
Every so often, the airplane vibrated slightly, and the overhead lights seemed to dim as the cabin settled into its long stretch of travel.
I could hear the faint sound of a movie playing somewhere nearby.
A child asked for a blanket.
Someone coughed.
The ordinary noises of the flight continued around us.
And I sat there, pretending to be absorbed in the view outside my window.
I had never considered myself a person who enjoyed embarrassing strangers.
In fact, I usually went out of my way to avoid confrontations.
If someone cut in front of me in a line, I often let it happen.
If a waiter got an order wrong, I tried to be understanding.
If a stranger spoke sharply to me, I usually told myself they were having a difficult day.
There was a difference, though, between being patient and allowing someone to treat you however they pleased.
I was only beginning to understand that difference.
The woman beside me turned a page in her book.
She didn't read a single word.
I knew because she had been looking at the same page for several minutes.
Finally, she leaned toward me.
"How long do you think he'll sleep?"
I glanced at the man.
"Long enough, I hope."
She pressed her lips together again.
I could tell she wanted to laugh.
I did too.
But we both knew that if we started giggling, we might wake him before we were ready.
So we stayed quiet.
The man's watch caught the light when he shifted his arm.
It was one of those watches that looked expensive enough to make people assume the person wearing it had good taste.
I found myself wondering whether he treated people this way outside an airplane.
Did he put his feet on other people's furniture?
Did he interrupt conversations and then accuse everyone else of being unreasonable?
Did he believe that having money meant he didn't have to consider anyone around him?
I couldn't know.
Maybe he was perfectly pleasant in other circumstances.
Maybe he was the kind of person who held doors open and remembered birthdays.
But the man sitting behind me had shown me something about himself.
When asked to stop making another person uncomfortable, he had chosen to laugh.
When given a simple request, he had responded with contempt.
When another passenger agreed that his behavior was unpleasant, he had dismissed her too.
That was enough for me.
I wasn't interested in deciding whether he was a good person.
I was interested in what he had done.
And what he had done was refuse to move his foot.
The flight continued.
At some point, a flight attendant walked past our row, collecting empty cups and checking that passengers had what they needed.
She glanced at the sleeping man.
Then she looked toward our side of the cabin.
I wondered whether she had noticed the foot.
If she had, she didn't say anything.
I didn't call her over.
I had already made my decision.
The woman beside me noticed the attendant too.
For a moment, I thought she might ask for help after all.
Instead, she gave me a tiny nod.
We would see how things played out.
Another ten minutes passed.
The foot remained on the armrest.
I began to notice how much of my attention it had consumed.
Before this happened, I had been thinking about my destination.
I had been wondering what I would eat after landing and whether I would be too tired to do anything that evening.
Now, a stranger's toes had become the center of my world.
That annoyed me more than I wanted to admit.
I had paid for my ticket.
I had followed the rules.
I had tried to be considerate of the people around me.
And somehow, I was the one rearranging my body to accommodate someone else's lack of consideration.
I looked down at my elbow.
A faint crease had formed in my sleeve where I had repeatedly pulled my arm away.
It was such a small thing.
That was what made the whole situation feel absurd.
I wasn't asking for a special favor.
I wasn't demanding extra space.
I simply wanted to use the armrest without touching a stranger's bare foot.
I leaned back and closed my eyes for a moment.
Not to sleep.
Just to let the anger settle.
I knew that if I acted out of pure irritation, I might turn a stupid incident into a much bigger one.
I didn't want that.
I wanted him to understand the inconvenience he had caused.
I wanted him to experience the sudden awareness of being watched that he had forced on the rest of us.
And, if I was honest, I wanted to see whether his confidence would survive a moment of embarrassment.
That last part wasn't especially noble.
But it was true.
I had no interest in pretending otherwise.
The woman beside me shifted her book again.
"Everything ready?" she whispered.
I gave a small nod.
She glanced toward the man.
"He really has no idea."
"No," I whispered back.
"He probably thinks you're just going to sit here and take it."
I looked at the sleeping passenger.
"That's what he seems to think."
She shook her head.
"People like that amaze me."
I didn't answer.
There was no point trying to understand him any further.
The plan was already in motion.
All that remained was to wait until he woke up.
I looked at the cabin clock on the screen in front of me.
Time seemed to move differently when you were waiting for someone else to make a mistake.
The minutes passed slowly.
A passenger across the aisle removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
A man a few rows ahead stood briefly to retrieve something from the overhead compartment, then sat down again.
The flight attendant disappeared behind the galley curtain.
The cabin returned to its subdued rhythm.
I watched the sleeping man's leg.
It hadn't moved much.
Every now and then, his toes twitched.
Each time, the woman beside me lowered her face toward her book.
I had to admit that our behavior probably looked suspicious.
Two adults sitting perfectly still, trying not to laugh, while a third person slept behind them.
If anyone had asked what we were doing, I wouldn't have known how to explain it without sounding ridiculous.
But then, the entire situation was ridiculous.
That was the point.
A little later, the man made a low sound in his throat and shifted his shoulders.
The woman beside me froze.
I did too.
He rubbed his face against the headrest and settled again.
We waited.
Nothing happened.
His breathing returned to its earlier rhythm.
I exhaled quietly.
The woman leaned toward me.
"That was close."
I nodded.
We waited some more.
I started to wonder whether he would sleep until the plane began its descent.
If he did, the whole thing might become pointless.
Then again, I reminded myself, I wasn't responsible for making sure the lesson happened at the perfect moment.
I had already spent too much of the flight thinking about him.
I could leave it there.
But I knew I wouldn't.
Not now.
Not after the way he had looked at me when I asked him to move his foot.
It wasn't merely that he had refused.
It was the ease with which he had decided that my discomfort didn't matter.
I had seen that expression before in other situations, though never quite like this.
The expression of someone who expected to get away with being unpleasant because nobody wanted to make a scene.
I looked at the woman beside me.
She had stopped pretending to read.
Her eyes met mine.
Neither of us said anything.
We didn't need to.
We had reached the point where words would only make us laugh.
The cabin lights softened further.
Somewhere behind us, a seatbelt buckle clicked.
The man continued sleeping.
I rested my hands on my knees and let the quiet stretch out.
For the first time since the foot had appeared, I wasn't angry.
I was curious.
I wanted to see the moment he realized that the world did not always respond to his behavior the way he expected.
I wanted to see what happened when the person he had dismissed refused to play the role he had assigned her.
And I wanted to see whether he would remember this flight the next time he thought about putting his feet where they didn't belong.
The woman beside me turned another page.
This time, she actually read a few lines.
I watched the clouds drift past the window.
Then I waited for the man behind me to wake up.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: The Cabin Was Quiet, His Foot Was Still Where It Didn’t Belong, and Neither of Us Was Prepared for How Quickly Things Would Change
Four Hours Into a Crowded Flight, I Discovered That the Man Behind Me Had Decided My Armrest Belonged to Him
Part 2 of 8
