What's the Big Deal about 9C?

“You’re in my seat,” said the very large, unfriendly, and intimidating man looming over me as he blocked the aisle of boarding passengers on my Southwest Airlines flight out of Atlanta last Saturday morning.

Now, if you have flown Southwest recently, you know that they have “open” seating.  You get on the plane, find a seat you like, and fold yourself into it.  First come, first served. And since they don’t want anyone to get trampled in the stampede at the gate, they assign you to boarding group A, B, or C and give you a number 1-60 within your group. Since I am a person of the long-legged variety, and I like a little extra shoulder room, I prefer an aisle seat.  The first open one I came to was 9C, so I parked myself there and waited for everyone else to get boarded so I could take a nap.

9C: a seat that will live in infamy.

When this fellow told me I was in his seat, my first approach was to explain that, on Southwest Airlines, there are no assigned seats.  That didn’t go over so well, so I moved into the aisle to allow him to have the middle seat on the row (9B).  He shook his head and pointed toward the middle seat and told me to move over.  So now it was obvious that he was seriously contesting my claim on 9C.

At a little over 6’2” and 215(ish) I am usually not one of the smaller people in the room. But this fellow had at least 5 inches and 125 pounds on me.  He also was way ahead of me in the intimidating stare factor.  So, I did what any red-blooded, testosterone fueled man with semi-functioning brain synapses would do. 

I told him he should take 9C and I moved back a row next to the window.

As I stewed and fumed and thought about all the things I would like to say and what I wished would happen to this interloper who invaded and snatched away my precious 9C, I had the proverbial “aha” moment.  Though I never saw it, I’m pretty sure his boarding pass had him as passenger number 9 in boarding group C.  If I had been in any other aisle seat on the entire plane, this whole exchange never would have happened.  Who knew that 9C was such a big deal?

James 1:19-20 says, “Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.”

I wonder how many silly little squabbles turn into major conflicts because we don’t take time to listen.  I wonder how many relationships have been irreparably damaged because everyone was talking and no one was listening. I wonder how it might be different.

That’s what I hope I always remember about 9C.