I’d like to share with you my BEST tall person victory.
Despite having to deal with many day-to-day problems, I’d like to point out that it’s not all doom and gloom for us tall folk. There are many situations where being tall is advantageous and tall people do have successes too.
This victory happened about 2 years ago and it was such a monumental moment for me that I still remember it clearly to this day and try to share it with every tall person I meet.
Some Context
This victory happened on an airplane.
Ask any tall person and they will without a doubt agree that the words “airplane” & “tall person” go together about as well as “cat” & “water”.
At the time I was living in Houston Texas and decided to celebrate my Birthday with some friends in Las Vegas. I wanted to save some money on the cost of the flight over so I decided to fly to Vegas via a budget airline (i’ll leave out the details of the airline). The flight time was going to be approximately 3 hours.
Suffice to say I was on a tiny airplane that could barely fit a person of average height, let alone me, ducking (or should I say half squatting) in the aisle of the plane as I moved along trying find my seat. After almost hitting my head many times on the open over head compartments I located my seat towards the back of the plane. One of the things with budget airlines is that the spacing between seats is so short you’d think it was modelled to fit midgets (for the record: I’m not saying there is anything wrong with being a midget)! This is pretty much what I looked like in my seat, without the seat in front of me even being reclined:
My knees were actually digging into the back of the person sitting in front of me, I could feel their back. If I attempted to put my tray table down it would reach my knees before it became parallel to the floor. I was sitting next to my friends and they couldn’t stop laughing at my predicament.
The Situation
Shortly after take-off the person in front of me attempted to put their seat back, if they were to succeed their head rest would be about 10cm from my face (no joke)! In that moment I did what any tall person would instinctively do, I stuck my arms out and pushed against their seat. The person in front kept pushing, thinking their seat had jammed, until they finally stopped and called for the flight attendant. The flight attendant came over, asked what the problem was and the person in front explained their seat “appears to be stuck”.
She asked the person to show her what they meant so they attempted to recline the chair back. Again I did what I had to do to preserve my legs and pushed back against the seat. In that moment the flight attendant realised what was going on and saw how badly I was cramped into my seat. She looked at me with sympathetic eyes (she was pretty tall too) while I just grinned. She didn’t say anything for what felt like forever, she then shifted her gaze from me towards the passenger and said in a calm voice:
… “I’m really sorry, it appears the chair you sitting in is broken and cannot recline” …
I couldn’t believe it. I was speechless.
THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT WENT OUT OF HER WAY, AGAINST THE AIRLINE POLICY AND DID WHAT SHE COULD TO ACCOMMODATE MY HEIGHT.
I motioned a silent “thank you” to her when she looked at me; she smiled and winked at me – it’s true, tall people understand each other!
She ended up offering the passenger some complimentary food (which normally you had to purchase) and for the duration of the flight they didn’t attempt to recline their seat. When the plane landed in Vegas and I stood up (half squatted) to get my bag from the overhead compartment the passenger in front of me looked at me and said “wow, you’re so tall – how tall are you?“. To this day I have a suspicion that at that particular moment the passenger realised what had really happened… welcome to a day in the life of a tall person.
Now it’s your turn.
Is this one of the best tall person victories you’ve ever read or do you perhaps have one of your own victories that you would like to share in the comments below?
Stand Tall and be proud.
really amazing stuff. Thanks for sharing.