@BravoAndy Here’s a great jackhole! He was angry that I reclined my seat and punched it about 9 times – HARD, at which point I began videoing him, and he resigned to this behavior. The other jackhole is the @AmericanAir flight attendant who reprimanded me and offered him rum! pic.twitter.com/dHeUysrKTu
— wendi (@steelersfanOG) February 9, 2020
What an epic battle between those two titans of air travel! Queen of the Karens vs. King of the Bernie Bros going head to head over a coveted few inches of space in the back two rows of an American Airlines flight. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a documentary about this incident someday.
Now, this was a tough one for me to judge, but I have to come to the conclusion they both suck major ass. I have made it clear in the past that I HATE HATE HATE recliners and think they are vile scum. That being said, this guy looks like such a loser and is going about the recliner defense completely wrong. Repeatedly punching the back of the recliner’s chair just makes you come off as the douchebag, even though the recliner is really the one responsible for the situation.
For anybody who hates recliners as much as I do, here are a few tactics to #resist against recliners without coming off as the villain like our bald friend here:
Disclaimer: I am 6’7… (not to brag)
1. The Knees in the Back
This is old reliable. When your knees already barely fit behind the seat in front of you then recliners get what is coming to them. The key is to have the knees already dug in as they begin to recline so they can feel the resistance. The weak of the recliners will either come back up or stop there. The next level of recliners will turn around to look, some out of actual curiosity, some just to be passive-aggressive. This is the key moment for any tall guy. You can’t give in here. Don’t move. Don’t even acknowledge them. Just look straight ahead and keep your knees where they are. The last level of recliners will push back through your knees and their full body weight will beat your knees if they really want to. Then you just will continue to push the knees in throughout the flight and they will not be comfortable. But again, not a continual punch like the guy from the video, if you just never move or give up your pressure then you have plausible deniability.
2. The Tray Table/TV
Luckily when the Wright Brothers invented the airplane they knew that tall guys would be in this tiff with recliners, so they invented two things that would help us out: the tray table and the back of the chair TV. When Muriel from Iowa reclines herself back into your lap and you think you have no defense, think again my friend. I love playing games on the TV and tapping as hard as humanly possible. Whether it be Solitaire, Blackjack, or trivia you can smash the buttons on the screen and I promise Muriel will feel that on the back of her head the whole flight. Your other option is the tray table. Whether it be for your drinks, snacks, laptop, or just to push it back up, you can make any excuse to put the table down. Then when you go to put it back up you can push it HARD into the chair because “you gotta push it up that hard to lock it in.” Feel free to put the tray up and down as many times as you deem necessary. Again, this is not just a repetitive punch so you have plausible deniability.
3. Just Buy Economy+ Seats
If you’re like me, you barely fit in an airplane seat to begin with and certainly don’t have room for someone to recline into your lap. I also can’t afford first class, so my move is to spill the extra cash on Economy+. It is very worth it in my opinion. On most airlines, you get free booze so it almost pays for itself there already. Plus, even if you somehow get a recliner there is still a decent amount of room. My rankings for best Economy+ seats is as follows:
1. The Exit Row seat where there is no chair in the row in front of you so you get full extension
2. Any other Exit Row seat
3. Front row seat (no one to recline on you)
4. Any Economy+ aisle seat
That concludes my rant about airplane recliners (for now). To sum it all up, if you recline you are an insensitive person that should reevaluate all aspects of your life. Also, if you respond like the guy in the video, you look like a huge douche and actually, in turn, give more power to the recliner because they get to be the good guy. So please follow some of my tactics that stop recliners, while still giving yourself plausible deniability to be the innocent good guy in the situation.
P.S. These are the three other most annoying things about flying as a tall guy that normies may not realize:
- Having to bend your body at a 90-degree angle to be able to stand up in the bathroom
- Getting your knee bashed by the cart or a person walking in the aisle if it’s even remotely poking out
- Not being able to lay your head back because the headrest if around the bottom of your neck
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
