{"id":6497,"date":"2026-09-01T10:10:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T08:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6497"},"modified":"2026-09-01T10:10:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T08:10:48","slug":"an-actual-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6497","title":{"rendered":"An Actual Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When I got to Vaclav Havel airport one Thursday morning in early August I was probably unrecognizable. This was mostly due to the smile I was wearing. It\u2019s very rare that I am smiling in an airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, it\u2019s not the fear as it once was. No. It\u2019s seems I\u2019ve traded in my terror of being 7 miles above earth in a flying death tube for an intense dislike of being in airports. Airports involve running, sweating, being delayed, being groped by paid agents, and being near other people. Besides a hefty enjoyment of a good grope by a strange, I hate all of those other things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this trip involves something I have virtually no experience with: a direct flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 22 years I\u2019ve been getting from Prague to Philadelphia twice a year, it has always almost every single time involved two flights. This means a whole other airport. It means the possibility of a delay, which in turn means the possibility of a missed flight, which in turn means the possibility of a longer time in an airport, which in turn means being near more people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a direct flight means I get on one plane and when I get off that plane I\u2019m where I want to be. Not Frankfurt, Paris, or London. I\u2019m in Philadelphia. This means a whole airport full of people that can\u2019t get to annoy the hell out of me with their whole being human thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m in row 12 on the aisle. I am sharing a very tight, three-seat row with a married couple in their 40s. I share a few, constipated words with the woman that tell me they don\u2019t intend to be chatty. This is very fine with me. Her husband sits on the window. He\u2019s wearing a good-natured smile and gym shorts that thirty years ago would have pegged him as a slacker but these days makes him like everyone else. We catch each other\u2019s eye and I decide on a harmless joke about the tight seats to set the pleasant tone. This will let them know that, even though we aren\u2019t going to be friends, they should feel free to get up and use the bathroom anytime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoy, they have us in here like cattle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man smiles and chuckles. \u201cPrague is a beautiful city.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t decide if the man has misheard me dramatically or if he\u2019s letting me know he doesn\u2019t want to converse. Before I can mull this over and conclude, a shriek draws my attention. It\u2019s a child shriek, so like most adults, I am slinking back into the shadows and hoping someone else will deal with whatever is going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation in a nutshell: A little boy might not be able to sit with his mom and is terrified. The mom it seems has opted to not get three seats together to ensure that she will be able to sit with her two children. Instead, she has opted to rely on the kindness of strangers \u2013 aka, the cheaper option. She now seems very distraught, but not distraught even to have considered her kid\u2019s feelings when she was buying the ticket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a little boy, he can\u2019t fly alone!\u201d intones a woman judgmentally from four rows away. It takes me a moment to realize that that woman doesn\u2019t in any way work for the airline. She\u2019s just a passenger with an opinion. A loud, unasked-for opinion. Something dawns on me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a Karen!\u201d I say to my seat companions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman nods into her book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man smiles at me. \u201cOur daughter studies at Villanova.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHuh.\u201d Can\u2019t figure this guy out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

And then more dawns on me. Not only am I experiencing a Karen in the wild, I am also experiencing another recent social phenomenon. There has been an alarming trend of people demanding that others give up their seats for someone else. Often it\u2019s a child who wants to be closer to a parent or guardian, and for whom, evidently, this consideration was not a factor in the seat-purchasing process. So then it\u2019s up to a random stranger \u2013 one, by the way, who bought tickets as well \u2013 to give up their seat. If they don\u2019t, well, then, we shall judge them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman is acting quite perturbed. Again, I feel compelled to point out that she wasn\u2019t perturbed enough to buy the seats she needed, just perturbed enough to garner the sympathy of a stranger who wishes their seat was in another part of the plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The people in front of her will not give up their seat. She sighs dramatically. The man on the aisle tells her and the steward that as long as they can find him another aisle seat, he will gladly move. The woman thanks him and engages him in conversation, seeing him as the way out of her predicament. In the end, someone behind the woman moves and the boy is tucked safely near his mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no clear-cut villain here. Plane tickets are insanely expensive these days and they nickel and dime you to boot. Want two bags? Sure, that\u2019ll be $120 more. Three bags? Well, I hope you are comfortable with two mortgages. But I can\u2019t help but wondering what she would have done had someone not given up their seat. Why is it part of the social contract now for us who aren\u2019t traveling with kids to ensure the comfort of those who are? For this I blame the woman, but in a very casual way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wish a small pestilence upon her. Nothing big \u2013 especially because we\u2019re on the same flight. Just a minor annoyance. A stale dinner roll with her chicken meal. A faulty earphone plug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My prayers are answered when the man who had offered to give up his seat has opened a line of discussion with her. He\u2019s been in Prague on a mission from God. Literally. He ran a religious-aligned camp for Czech and Slovak kids. And he wants to tell her all about it. It\u2019s clear that the woman \u2013 who has now gotten what she wanted \u2013 has no interest in hearing about anything the man has to say. She reacts to his benignly tone-deaf stories with one-word answers and active-listening greatest hits like grunts and a few noncommittal oh yeah\u2019s, is-that-right\u2019s, and ah\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ha! I think as we start heading towards the runway. Enjoy about 8 hours of that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I catch the man\u2019s eye and smile at him. He smiles back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy were you in Prague?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think fast. \u201cI\u2019m quite partial to winter, in fact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He squints in confusion but is too good-natured to push forward. I look at the couple in my row. The woman smiles into her book. The husband winks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGenius.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I got to Vaclav Havel airport one Thursday morning in early August I was probably unrecognizable. This was mostly due to the smile I was wearing. It\u2019s very rare that I am smiling in an airport. Oh, it\u2019s not the fear as it once was. No. It\u2019s seems I\u2019ve traded in my terror of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1GN","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1280px-B737-500.Economycabin.jpg?fit=1280%2C960&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6499,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497\/revisions\/6499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}