With the greatest respect...

This photo was taken on the street in the Soho section of London.

Knowing the proclivity of the English for saying one thing yet meaning another, I suspect this shop probably sells socks.

The famed "British courtesy" in particular appears to stem from a desperate desire not to acknowledge the needs and desires of other people.

Checking in at Heathrow for my flight to New York, I requested a window seat, as I am mildly claustrophobic. Looking out the window generally enables me to pretend that my knees are not pressed up against my chest in an airless tin can. "No trouble at all, sir," said the check in lady, and I made my merry way to the gate.

Upon boarding the plane, I discovered to my horror that, while I did in fact have the seat nearest the fuselage, there was no window in my row. My window seat had no window. I sat down and began to sweat, my anxiety rising as the other seats filled in with boarding passengers.

Soon, a couple sat down in the aisle and middle seats next to me. Being average-sized Americans, they were quite obviously too large for the miniscule coach-class chairs. Also, they smelled like they had both just eaten full English Breakfasts, blood pudding and all. I started to feel light-headed. Perhaps it had not been the best of ideas to spend the previous evening in a futile endeavor to match a couple of Englishmen pint for pint. I sipped from a bottle of Coke, and nonchalantly began searching the seat pocket in front of me for the barf bag.

A stewardess approached.

"Are you quite comfortable?" she asked.

"Actually," I said, "I think I'm going to have to switch seats. I requested a window seat, but I don't have a window."

"I'm sorry?"

"I'm a little claustrophobic, and I feel like I'm being pressed against the wall here." Actually, I felt like I had been packed into the bottom of a can of processed meat. Nausea came in great waves.

"You asked for an aisle seat, sir?"

"No, I wanted a window seat. I need to look out the window. But..." I gestured dramatically to the blank wall on my left, "no window. I need to move." The stewardess seemed to be standing ten feet above me. I thought, this must be what it feels like to be buried alive.

"Are you seated in your ticketed seat, sir?"

"Yes. But I need to switch. Like, now. I feel sick." The plane began to spin. I anxiously rifled through all the seat pockets in my row, as the other Americans eyed me nervously. No barf bags to be found.

"I'm terribly sorry, but you'll have to remain in your assigned seat until we're airborne, and the captain has turned off the 'fasten seatbelts' sign. Then you may relocate, should we have any available seats. Thanks ever so much, sir."

The stewardess smiled, and walked off to ignore some other passengers. It was like the scenes in zombie films, where the evil Voodoo priestess cackles overhead as the undertaker closes the casket lid. I wanted to scream, "Don't let them bury me! I'm not really dead!"

"You OK?" asked the American woman, "You don't look so good."

"Sorry, I gotta get out," I said, and stood up as the Americans hurriedly made way for me. They could see a bad thing was about to happen.

I lurched into the aisle, and grasped the back of an empty end seat in the middle section. The stewardness noticed me.

"Sir, I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait until later to move."

I tried to fully right myself, and quickly realized there was no hope of making the bathrooms. I rifled through several more seat pockets. No barf bags anywhere. How very optimistic of them. I tore the plastic covering off of a blanket. No way that was going to work. I considered the water-retaining capabilities of the pillow case. Nope. The Coke bottle. That was going to have to do it. It would be tricky, though.

"Sir." The stewardess strode toward me, looking vexed.

I leaned over and retched into the coke bottle — mostly. A bit of ick hit my shoes, a bit hit the floor, a bit hit one of the empty seats.

I wiped the ick from my face, dropped down in an empty seat in the middle section, and looked over at the stewardess. She stood frozen for a couple of seconds, then abruptly turned and walked away.

One by one the other passengers quietly moved away from me, until practically everyone in the cabin was now seated in a different seat.

In classic English fashion, no one on the plane acknowledged that anything out of the ordinary had occurred. The capped Coke bottle of vomit rested in the seat pocket next to me for the entire flight.

I was, however, given one extra "Refreshing Facial Towelette" when those were distributed.


[Postscript: I feel like something of a whiner at this point, given that my flight could just have easily come with duty-free Polonium-210 service.]