Pakistani Air Space

Of my whole trip to and from Africa, out of 18 total hours of flying, by far the most irritating part was the last leg from Dubai to Karachi. I don’t know what it is, but any flight between Dubai and Karachi, or vice versa, is really annoying. I think part of this is based on the fact that statistically, there’s a good chance I will be sitting next to a Pakistani. Now, don’t get me wrong, as you all know, I love Pakistanis, but when it comes to planes, they drive me crazy. To start with, half the time, no one is sitting in the right seat. I don’t know if the seating plan is just unfathomable or what, but I’ve never been on any other flight with so many people saying, "Excuse me, I think this is my seat." This time around, I figured it just wasn’t worth the hassle, so I gave up my aisle seat to the guy already seated in it, and sat in the middle. I figured that since it’s not a long flight, I could probably deal with it. However, because I always request the aisle, I had not anticipated the special tortures of sitting between two strangers. You see, I’m not even sure how this is possible, but no matter how small a Pakistani man might be, he will somehow take up as much space as humanly possible on an aircraft. I mean, I’m a large guy. I have big bones. There is nothing I can do about my size. And yet I’m the one with my arms clamped to my side, half leaning to one side or the other, too polite to mention anything (read: push over). And then, inevitably, the newspapers come out. These guys don’t just read the paper, they wrestle with it, and often appear to be losing. I cower between the blooms of newsprint with my paperback, trying not to get ink smudges on my face. Oh, and forget about the armrests. You know how there is always that little bit of doubt as to who gets those middle armrests? Well, my logic goes like this: If you’ve got the aisle seat, you have a bit of added comfort, so you give up your right hand arm rest. On the window, you’ve got the view, so you give up your left armrest. This leaves the two middle armrests as the last vestige of comfort the middle seat person can hold on to. But of course, on this trip, my two Pakistani seat-fellows, sprawled in their maximum space configurations, managed to corner every bit of every armrest. I slowly tried to edge my elbow on to one of them, but received such scowls that I gave up.

How can such little people take up so much space?