TIFU by switching my economy seat for a first-class one

r/

So, some context. I’m a 26-year-old woman with anxiety and autism, but I’m friendly and outgoing. I’m coming off of an all-company work trip at a job I just started a month ago. I actually had a great time, but my anxiety and exhaustion were at an all-time high all week.

It all starts on my flight home. I had just boarded the plane, but there was some congestion that left me standing in the aisle right where the three rows of first-class seats began. I noticed a woman by the window in the second row trying to flag down the flight attendant behind me. Honestly, her mannerisms were pretty intense, so I started paying attention because I thought there might be some tea.

She got his attention about ten seconds later, and she actually seemed pretty sweet and friendly as she asked the flight attendant if she could swap with someone in economy so she could sit with her family. The flight attendant and the man in front of me laughed, saying, “I’m sure you’ll have no problem getting someone to swap with you back there for first class!” The woman looked at me, smiled, and said, “If you sit near a man back there with a scruffy beard, let me know!” I smiled back and said, “Okay!” doubting I’d be the person with that kind of luck.

Walking down the aisle, the man in front of me turned toward me and said, “It’s gonna be someone’s lucky day today!” I laughed and replied, trying to seem social (masking, lol), “Hey, maybe it’ll be one of us!” He laughed, and we all went back to finding our seats and stowing our carry-ons. I got to my aisle seat in row 29 and waited for the person sitting next to me to arrive.

Dude, I swear, it was the smelliest option it could have been. I got up, they sat down, I sat down, put my seatbelt on. I put my headphones on and started jamming. One minute later, my stinky seatmate flagged me down so they could go to the bathroom. I unbuckled, got up, moved out of the way, sat back down.

Then the flight attendant from earlier flagged me down and asked if I’d be willing to switch seats with someone in first class. I agreed, of course. As I was getting up and grabbing my personal item, I laughed with the flight attendant about how I’d seen the initial conversation and joked with the man in front of me about it being someone’s lucky day.

As he brought me to my new seat, I asked him what I should do with my carry-on, and he told me I could ask the woman in first class to swap overhead spots with her since all the bins were full. Okay, makes sense. Well, when I got up to the woman I was swapping with, I asked her if we could switch luggage spots. She happily replied, “Oh no! It’s okay! I don’t mind!”

My heart drops. I don’t have the balls to address this. So I just get in my seat, wondering how the fuck I’m going to get my luggage 26 rows back when we land. People are in SUCH a rush to get off planes that it’s a circus trying to move forward, let alone backward.

I try to brush it off, hoping the flight attendant will help me figure it out. So I put my headphones on and try to rest. But I can’t. I’m way too anxious about this dumbass luggage fiasco.

About 45 minutes later, when a different flight attendant offers me a drink, I ask very transparently ”I have a silly question. I’m anxious about how I’m going to get my bag 20-something rows back since I swapped with the woman who was initially here.” I kid you not, this middle-aged woman with a thick Southern drawl responds, “Well, weave, and make like a salmon swimming upstream!”

Jesus Christ. The worst, but most hilarious, advice I may have ever been given.

So, when we disembark, I’ll be honest, I was kind of in a rush too, and didn’t want to have to wait for the whole plane to get off before I could peacefully walk my 26 rows back so I make like a damn salmon and swim upstream with a lot of “Excuse me’s” and “I’m sorry’s.” Those people were probably like, “Bruh, who’s this idiot?”

Which, I get, in the scheme of life, it doesn’t matter. But as an anxious person who tries to take up as little space in this world as possible (metaphorically speaking), this was my worst nightmare.

Once I finally got to my luggage, I opened the overhead bin, grabbed it, and now I was stuck waiting in the same line I would have been in anyway. Plus, I bet if I had said no, the stinky person next to me would have said yes, and I could have just taken their seat. That entire disaster could have been prevented if I just didn’t swap my economy seat for first class.

TL;DR I switched seats with a woman in first-class so she could be with her family, but my carry-on was stuck 26 rows behind my new seat, leading to a social disaster when trying to get off the plane.