Don't Curb Your Enthusiasm In the Not-So-Friendly Skies
Prologue
The following column was a real-life incident that took place on Jan. 4, shortly before the funniest, most brilliant, most raw and real comedy series of our lives (well, ok, it is a 1a and 1b with Seinfeld, which, of course, David also co-created and produced), "Curb Your Enthusiasm" debuted its 12th and final season. Immediately, my quagmire made me think of Larry David and how he'd react. Two months later, I talked about it on our "Nobody's Listening Anyway" podcast, with co-host and fellow Curb fan Matt Zimmer deeming me "South Dakota's Larry David." A month after that, I finally wrote about this on a different plane ride. A week after that, in the final scene of the 120th and final episode, Curb ended its 24-year run with this exact, hilarious, human-dividing concept.
I want some royalties, Larry!
I could just hear the tubas starting to bellow that goofy three-note-beat.
Bum-bum-bum.
If you're a devoted "Curb Your Enthusiasm" fan, you know that beat in your head signals you've realized you have stumbled into a painfully awkward, uncomfortable, potentially miserable, and, in the worst case, destructive social situation that Larry David bumbles into in every episode, because he thinks only of himself and just can't help himself.
It's a quagmire. Speak up, and you're likely to be met with objection, scorn, slight disdain, potential rejection, and almost certainly a look or gesture of "who the hell do you think YOU are?" This, followed by humiliation and guilt.
Stay silent and you'll sit there in your insufferable, regretful torturous stupor -- neurotically, hopelessly wondering how much better your current state would be had you said something, you big wuss, as you boil with contempt at the stranger next to you, who is clueless to the splendor of what sits next to them.
There are all kinds of ways of saying "there are two kinds of people on Earth."
Democrats and Republicans. Pro-life and pro-choice. Believers and atheists. Budweiser drinkers and juicy mango pineapple quadruple pine cone migraine-inducing haze IPA hipsters. Still-a-Maroon 5-fan or "It was Just a Phase of My Hammerheaded Youth and I Didn't Know Any Better."
All these dividers are cut-and-dry, stripped-to-the-bone litmus tests of what kind of humans we are and if we'd enjoy happy hour cocktails together or just remain two strangers sitting silently, awkwardly next to each other at the bar.
But no divider draws the line in the sand quite like this:
Open window or closed window before and during liftoff of a commercial airline flight.
I can't even believe, nor comprehend, one of these two kinds of people even exists.
Yet, it does, and I depressingly slumped my shoulders and felt my face droop toward the floor as I realized my aisle seat was next to two members of the opposite group.
I plunked into my aisle seat on a flight departing Cabo San Lucas, which is perhaps one of the more visually breathtaking places on Earth -- its aqua-and-teal ocean waters colliding with behemoth, awe-inspiring rocks at shore, and beige and purple desert mountains sparkled on land. A "screw you, top that, holy shit how does this kind of beauty actually exist on this plane" type of moving postcard from ground level to 30,000 feet, right out the window.
That is, if you're into that sort of thing.
Or you could be like them, window shut, content with never seeing that view or being so oblivious, you have no idea you're about to get it, which is impossible considering YOU WERE JUST THERE on vacation, like everyone else on the planet. I'd like to think most humans with a functioning brain would want to see that vast splendor of grandeur flying away in the distance, but I noticed I was in the minority, as many windows were closed on this 1pm flight. What is WRONG with people? Have we all gone mad?
I shouldn't reveal any physical description of this couple. I don't want to confirm or pervey any stereotypes based on age, race, or gender. I'll just say your first guess of age is probably right. The kind of age I might have been in 2004 when I liked Maroon 5.
I said nothing and tried to stay calm and optimistic as the plane started taxiing on the runway, but my heart beated faster with every second of realization that there was diminishing chances of them looking up from whatever piece of cinematic crap was captivating their full attention on their iPad.
So, I had a choice to make as the plane sped up, ready for wheels up. And, like Larry David usually does, I chose to roll the dice and poke the bear. I chose to ask the window passenger, who technically owns possession of the window, to push that thin plastic veil up so we can see, you know, THE WORLD from above instead of nothing.
Knowing the possibility of this throwing window sitter's world off its axis, interrupting and providing annoying sunlight glare to whatever Middle Ages dungeons-and-dragons vampire romance epic barfology playing on that screen, I exhaled the kindest and most uplifting and angelic "excuse me" I could muster, and pointed at the plastic veil of darkness next to window sitter.
The game plan was to utter the words "do you mind opening the window for takeoff" if window sitter didn't get the gesture. And to follow that with "it's going to be the most remarkable, spectacular view you'll ever see from above in your life if you do" if there was no response or a resistance to that remark.
Fortunately, no words were required. And, the reaction was minimalist without words, too. Just a casual and seamless lift of a finger, pushing the window open, then a glance back to the fantasy world on the screen that couldn't possibly compete with the reality about to unfold two inches away.
I didn't see, but could easily sense, an eyeroll to the heavens, and that if this person could make like the short-haired woman that Ed Rooney mistook for Ferris Bueller at the sports bar in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and proverbially slurp up the last remnants of their Pepsi and spew it in face with a satisfying smirk, they would.
Disturbed? Clearly. Agitated enough to waste one word or calorie of kinetic energy on resisting this request? No. Just a half-gesture of disdain, the laziest possible.
This is usually what Larry David senses or receives when he rolls the dice.
And that was it. That's when the tubas stopped playing and the possibility of a real-life "Curb" episode fizzled.
This person was not nearly passionate enough about their stance on airplane window placement to turn this experience into a hilarious, escalating, screaming disaster from Hell. Well, any more than the airplane flying experience already is.
Just an establishment that we sit on different sides of the aisle. Or, in this case, window. I got my wish and peered out the window, enjoying the once-in-a-lifetime view without a shred of guilt.
Gotta tell you, it was prettay, prettaaaaaay, prettay prettay good.
And then it was over, as the plane ascended into the clouds, Mother Nature called, and I excused myself to do contortionist tricks those of us who weigh over 60 lbs must perform just to urinate successfully in the lavatory.
When I came back, guess what? The window was down. Cue the tubas and the credits.
