Gary
We boarded the plane but only then did they discover a mechanical issue, so we had to get back off and the flight was delayed a couple hours. Fair enough, better safe than sorry. When we lined back up a couple hours later people were naturally impatient. I took my place in the boarding group 2 queue.
Suddenly this older lady came crashing through our lane, stumbling over luggage. She was late for pre-boarding and desperately needed to get beyond us peasants so she could get on the plane as fast as possible. We were confused as there was plenty of room off to the side to easily pass toward the boarding pass scanner. Instead she chose to needlessly storm through us.
While stepping on somebody’s bag she lost her balance and began tipping over. The guy behind me reached out and more or less slowed her fall. She was okay, and we all helped her get back up. Turns out her husband was about 10 steps behind her and he apologized for the commotion, and they both continued to plow on through.
I boarded and discovered the husband had the middle seat next to me. His name was Gary. I claimed my aisle position. A young lady had the window spot. The wife was in the middle seat in the row behind us, but turns out the couple were offered one first class upgrade. They both told the other, “you should take it,” but Gary insisted his wife should claim it and she ultimately got up to enjoy some luxury. He then turned to me and asked, “I did the right thing, right?”
We never did introduce ourselves. I learned who he was as he was plunked away on his big screen iPad with large fonts for easy readability. I quickly learned his full name. And that he had a Morgan Stanley investment account. And it’s worth $1.6 million. And I also got some of the digits of his account number.
Even after the delay we were stuck on the tarmac waiting to take off for over an hour. During that Gary bopped me on the shoulder. Startled, I went, “yeah?” And he said, “I need to get up.” As the plane was still taxiing and could jerk at any second I felt this was unsafe. Plus I didn’t want to get yelled at by a flight attendant as I stood up to first let him out. “Um, we’re still on the ground,” I said. He then apologized - he was so being busy on his iPad that he didn’t realize we hadn’t taken off yet - the young lady at the window is the sort of weird awful person who keeps their window shade closed during takeoff, hence his confusion.
We did finally enter the sky. Frequently during the flight he continued to lightly punch my shoulder so he could get up. Fine, this is what happens on planes, but the aggressiveness of his requests grew irksome. Plus he usually did this when I was clearly busy doing music work on my laptop. I’d have to stop whatever I was doing, unhook several wires, and let him through.
At a couple points his wife came back to visit. On one such trip she brandished a brimming cup of wine she got for free in first class but didn’t want. So this same woman he fell over some hours ago was wobbly passing liquid to her husband over my laptop. Nerve wracking.
Anyway, I continued to learn a lot about Gary as he poked at his iPad. Turns out he’s a huge Steely Dan fan, and quotes lyrics to his pals via text. Clearly Pretzel Logic is his fave album. He has a dog and some adult children. I got his email-address. He’s still on AOL! I also caught the full name of his Morgan Stanley agent. And it looks like he does some E-trade on the side. Tech stocks, mostly. Also the makeup of his family and the breed/name of his pet dog.
Basically I learned a lot about this gentleman that I could completely fuck his life up if I wanted. Not that I did. He’s just a goofball. And also he was a very anti-Trump. This story is basically a public service announcement - stop using the internet in public.