Exit Row!

Plotnik didn't even know he was in an exit row. He LOVED the extra space for his feet and was wondering how he had gotten so lucky. He could see the emergency exit in front of him, up there by his shoes, and he could see out of the corner of his eye that a flight attendant was standing next to the row of seats in front of him, and he could also kind of make out that she was droning away in language of the sort that is in the boiler plate contract you never read when you buy a dishwasher or coffee pot, but he was busy reading "The Things They Carried" on Ducknik's Kindle, so he never heard a word she said until "Is this all OK with you, sir?"

He looked up. "Are you talking to me?" he said.

She stared at him. "You are in an exit row."

"This is an exit row? Why isn't the exit next to me instead of next to the row in front of me, then?"

Silence.

"I thought that was probably the exit row."

Silence.

"I thought you were probably talking to those guys," he said.

Silence.

"This here's your cap'n. We bin clared fer tyke-off," said the intercom.

"OK," Plotnik lied. "I heard every word. I agree. I'm in."

This was good enough for her. She walked away. But how many times had she given this useless speech? She was just bored.

Still, if the plane crashed, Plotnik was going to be useless to anybody.

He could have said:

"If this plane goes down, you know, nobody is going to remember one damned word you said. We'll all be busy screaming and vomiting."

He could have said:

"If you really want to get someone's attention, why don't you make sure they're listening and not reading?

He could have said:

"I love having room for my feet, for once. You guys sit in the back and read magazines and tell each other funny stories. We are jammed into seats built in China for Chinese people. How do I get this seat again?"

He could have said:

"Don't get me started about air travel."

At the very least, he could have said:

"I'll try not to scream or vomit."