The airplane was stuffed. Everyone was already seated when some guy, obviously late and sweating profusely, comes clambering onto the plane lugging a couple of bags.
He scrambles up right next to me in my aisle seat, drops his bags and pulls out a ticket from his shirt pocket and checks it, his eyes darting between the ticket and the seat number on the ceiling.
“Excuse me, but I believe you are in my seat,” he said.
I’ve made the mistake of taking the wrong seat before, so I immediately doubt myself and reach inside my jacket pocket for my ticket, then confirm I am in 14C.
“I am actually in my correct seat, 14C,” I said, while showing him the ticket.
He shows me his ticket indicating his seat assignment to be 14C, then says, “That’s odd. We both have the same seat.”
Noting a very important distinction, I said, “No we don’t. We don’t have the same seat. We have the same seat assignment. I have seat 14C. You apparently don’t have a seat.”
He hung his head in disappointment. Adding insult to injury, the gentleman sitting next to me exploded in laughter.