(notice: this isn’t technically about BlogHer so my aforementioned ban on BlogHer discussion does in fact hold true. Baby steps, people, baby steps.)

This little rant isn’t on a topic that I think is exclusive to United Airlines (my airline of choice last week), so I’m not putting United on notice. Overall, United was a very nice airline to travel with. I truly enjoyed my trip east. My trip west on the other hand…

WHY oh WHY do they still have reclining seats in coach? Can someone answer that for me? Here’s the way I figure it: Either give coach more leg room or get rid of the reclining seats. Because your average human being cannot handle not reclining one of those seats and then I end up with someone’s seat in my lap/face/etc for 3+ hours. I swear, on my flight from Chicago, the jerkoff in front of me reclined his seat as soon as the plane took off and did not return it to it’s full upright position until the stewardess came and told him to, moments from landing. And those few moments left on that torturous flight were the first moments that I could actually put my legs in front of me. For 3+ hours. This was also on a 767, which if you aren’t familiar, is laid out something like this:

(XX XXX XX)

And guess where I was sitting? I dare you, just GUESS. Give up? (the spaces indicate the aisles) Here:

(XX XXX XX)

Oh yes. Right smack in the middle. So I was surrounded by people in front of me, behind me, on the sides of me. No window to gaze out of, no aisle to lean out into or stretch my legs into. No, just an overweight jerkoff with his seat in my lap for 3+ hours. And his kid was a complete brat too, but by that point I sort of expected that.  Also a feature of the 767 is the video screens in the seat back of every seat in coach.  Which would have been nice had I had more than 6 inches between the end of my nose and the video screen (trust me, I measured).  I watched “Premonition” starring Sandra Bullock but found myself getting so damned uncomfortable (on top of already exhausted out of my mind) that I could hardly enjoy it.  Oh, and they only let us watch that one movie.  After the movie was over, we were SOL.  So I watched the plane inch across the digital map (a nifty 767 feature that you can liken to watching a pot full of water come to a boil) and literally WILLED it to hurry up and get to freakin’ San Francisco already.  And I definitely felt some pangs as we flew over Nevada and I wished for a moment that we’d experience some sort of equipment failure and have to make an emergency landing in Reno.

In a word?  The flight was MISERABLE.  I was fine flying out to Chicago because no one flight was over 2 1/2 hours long.  I flew from Reno to Denver and then Denver to Chicago.  We got to watch our shows/movies and all was well.  I never felt as uncomfortable as I did on the Chicago to San Fransisco leg and I totally blame that stupid reclining seat.  So my new rule is that any flight that is longer than 3 hours needs to be business class or better.  And if I can’t afford it?  I’m DRIVING.