The middle seat

I am a middle-seat person.

In cars, on planes, at the dinner table when there are lots of guests, middle-seat people never get the outside seat or chair. They are always stuck between other people. They do not even try for those coveted spaces anymore; a lifetime of being consigned to the middle seat has made them assume, along with everyone else, that they will sit in the middle.

In a car, they have become used to squeezing their hips into a teeny tiny space and having only the protection of a lap belt. What does it matter? If there is an accident, they are not going anywhere because they are held firmly in place by the passenger on either side of them. When the car makes a sharp turn, they have gotten used to floating in space, with no door or armrest to hold on to. They have also gotten used to having the heat or air conditioning blasting right in their face.

Middle-seat people never fly on planes with only two seats to a side. They never get the aisle or window seat. They never view the clouds or city lights unobstructed. They never have the chance to stick their head out in the aisle for a little fresh air or a better view of the beverage cart. Everything is obscured by heads or tops of seats (unless they are tall, but middle-seat people are never tall). It is a little like being a child and seeing everything through a sea of knees. Middle-seat people never have an armrest to call their own, and what little space they do have is often encroached upon by their seatmates.

Middle-seat people also get the inside spot at the dinner table. All during the meal they are jostled from both sides, so that they end up sitting partially sideways in an effort to give themselves a little more room. Their knees are bruised from constantly banging into the table leg. They cannot comfortably get up from the table before the people on either side of them, as they have no side exit and no easy way of backing their chair away from the table if there is carpeting beneath.

You may be saying, "But middle-seat people are smaller. It's more comfortable to sit in the middle when you're smaller." As a lifetime middle-seat person, I can say that the middle seat is not comfortable no matter if you are the size of a flea. But this does brings up another interesting point: Are middle-seat people really smaller to begin with, or do they gradually shrink as their body is continually squeezed into tight places?