Ginger vs. Manspreading
I have been traveling by plane a lot lately - home for Thanksgiving, home for Christmas, back to San Francisco, then immediately back home the next day because the future I thought I had disappeared faster than guacamole put out at an office holiday party. But thatās not the point of this post.
The point is, Iāve learned a lot while racking up all those meaningless miles I can trade in for a $20 Amazon gift card - like wait to buy the $2 airline headphones from a flight attendant instead of splurging on same-quality but $30 headphones from a Hudson News. Iāve also realized I rather sit next to someone deathly afraid of flying, a therapy animal I am allergic to, or someone transporting a beating organ, than 90% of men.
Now you may be thinking,Ā āYou wanted to be a flight attendant, you love every aspect of flying!ā That, or youāre sitting on the toilet at work reading this because thereās nothing new on Reddit and youāre out of Candy Crush lives not thinking much to begin with. Either way - totally fine, Iāll take my readers where I can getĀ āem. But news fucking flash, my Pan Am era dreams of flying have been ruined for me by MANSPREADERS.Ā
What is a manspreader? Urban Dictionary says itās word feminists use, and Iām thinking maybe, idk? Bust mostly itās a word normal decent carbon-based lifeforms use to describe a man that sits with his knees set so wide apart that it looks like his grundle is trying to consume the seat in front of him. Other side effects of manspreading include a manās knee and upper thigh sliding onto your faux leather seat, warming your metal seatbelt like a little testosterone powered microwave. This often results in girls (like myself) having to squeeze their legs together so hard they get off the plane with thighs that look like they belong to an American Ninja Warrior, all to avoid some unwanted Banana Republic khaki to leggings contact.Ā
I get it, you all have huge Mangum wearing dicks, that require feet upon feet of space to hang so your precious sperm full of big-dong-carrying DNA arenāt squeezed to death. But at the same time, guys basically spend the first 25 years of their lives with 2 goals - stay out of jail and donāt get anyone pregnant. So shouldnāt you want to squish your fleshy stress balls just a wee bit? If you need that much space to sit comfortably, sell your dick pics to the Smithsonian, and use the ticket sales to sit first class where there are little walls between seats to prevent thigh spillage. Boom, everyoneās happy, you, me, and most importantly - your balls.Ā
Being the passive aggressive ginger gem that I am, Iāve found ways to combat this growing epidemic. First, always pick an aisle seat. Youāll feel less pinned to the wall in the least sexy way possible like you would with a window seat. Plus, you have Instagram - you know what a plane wing over a sunset looks like. Also, youāre gonna want to be able to get up to go to the bathroom, because youāll need to go often with tip two. That tip being, DRINK! Stick to wine or like, vodka ginger ale. Sometimes the flight attendants give you 2 mini bottles for the price of 1, but then you have to sit there with a cup of melting ice for thirty minutes. Wine is nice, although lower in alcohol content, but you can sip it without a plastic cup, twist the lid back on, and stick it in your sleeping neighborās seat pocket.Ā
Next, pick one of those random emergency rows where there is no immediate row in front of you, so the trays fold out of the armrest. That way, no man can slowly move the armrest up, allowing for additional leg space. The divider is like a little Trump-esque wall, only itās actually effective and not a horrible waste of money. Make your grandma roll over in her grave by sitting spread eagle the moment you sit down.
Thereās a second, less obvious, much sneakier, manspreader species as well. This kinda of fellow sits so his feet are touching, but allows his legs to flop wide open like opposing magnets are embedded in his knees, pushing his thighs open like a pervy butterfly stretch. Eradicate this level of oh-hell-no by un-hinging your tray table so it hits his wandering knee.Ā
Or thereās always the more direct route of asking a man to move his leg because you feel itās entered your personal space. I have tried this route. I put on my best 5 AM flight smile and asked ever so politely, ever so sweetly, that if you were eavesdropping you may have thought I was Snow White summoning woodland creatures to help me craft artisanal soy candles for a charity farmerās market. To which he promptly responded,Ā āI think youāre on my side.ā And in that moment I was the murderous woman on Dateline from the sleepy backroads town where ānothing like that could happen hereā and everyone still has a landline, who tells the police she was so angry she saw red. Now let me tell you, I am the girl that has put duct tape down the middle of a shared room and I went to art school, I basically majored in coloring inside the lines. I know where my side ends, and your side begins.Ā
So you know what I do then? I reach over you and turn my reading light on and off so often you think youāre at a God damn rave hosted by Lena Dunham. If you so much as think youāre going to get away with using your jacket as a blanket, draping it across the entire row like we are telling spooky ghost stories around the fire at sleep away camp, you have another think coming. And if you happen to outlive me, so help you God, I will make it my mission in the afterlife to haunt your ass from whatever low staffed Forever 21 purgatory my soulless carcass ends up in.
#micdropĀ
