I'm wondering how long it will take somebody to sit next to me. As it is, I've got a pretty good seat: second row, aisle, nobody next to me. There's a woman by the window, but she's reading a book. No chance of conversation here. I hide in my book and wait. . . .

The plane is filling up. It's the Austin - Dallas special, always crowded, never fizzy.

'Sir, can we buy you a drink for you to move over in that seat,' the flight attendant points to the area of Southwest planes that I call the 'so close you can smell me section.' This is where two seats face the back of the plane and three seats face the front and all of them face each other. Some of these areas are a little larger than others, making the whole experience nicer, but this was one of the cramped ones - where everybody has to find places to put their legs without actually resting them in each other's lap. The seat she is pointing to is the middle seat in the row of three, a perfect spot for my 6'1" body. I can hear the others in the 'smell me' section groan at the thought of my imminent arrival in their already cramped quarters. The flight attendant leans closer to me. 'We have a grandmother with a little girl and it would be nice if they could sit together.'

I smile graciously. 'Of course,' I say.

Did I mention I'm a damn nice guy? You have to ask yourself, however, did I really have that much of a choice but to be nice? Well, not really, right? I mean I could have said no, but that would have just screwed me. I mean, forget the drink, the free scotch I wound up slamming back like a cowboy in a western movie - that was irrelevant, could you imagine if I had simply looked at that flight attendant and said, 'No.' Actually, if I had said no, it would be something more like: 'Are you kidding me? There is a reason I got here early and was 6th in line for boarding this cattle car you call a plane, and it wasn't to sit for 50 minutes with my knees in another man's groin.'

Ahhh. The roles we play in our imagination.

No, I couldn't really say this, could I? Aside from not getting a free drink (which really didn't matter that much to me, but had a certain appeal given the situation) my rudeness would be frowned upon by all those sitting around me. I could imagine the weight of their disapproving stares. It was not a pretty fate. Besides that, I might actually be considered 'hostile' in today's post 9-11 climate.

So in the end I agreed to the switch with gusto, that's right, downright enthusiasm, all the while cursing my bad luck. I stood in front of the two people blocking me: a kid reading a fantasy novel and another all-to-proper woman who seemed to take it as a personal affront that she was being subjected to these unbearable circumstances. When you sit in the 'smell me' section on a Southwest flight, you pretty much know you're going to be rubbing elbows. . . and knees . . . and maybe playing some footsie. Best thing to do is just roll with it. This woman actually thought she could avoid this by sliding all the way over in her chair and keeping her left hand on her right armrest at all times. I smiled at her as I performed some simple calisthenics to achieve the goal of my seat, stradling her legs like a male stripper. After some work, I plopped into my seat and moved around in such a way as to physically nudge everybody around me at least once. I pretended this was an accident.

Behind me and to my left a delighted grandmother and her daughter were happily getting situated in my old seat.

Commuter plane travel is a bitch.

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