Smartpunters.com - Blog the Earth

I caused an airplane commotion on the flight from Hanoi to Saigon.  I pressed a button on the side of my street which I thought would recline my chair.  Instead, it caused a section behind my lower back to rise dramatically, a sort of lumbar support.  It was really uncomfortable, as though the chair were having an erection into my lower back.  Of course, then I couldn't figure out how to flatten the chair back again.  Realizing that spending the rest of the flight with a lump in my back would be agony, I called the flight attendant. She got increasingly frustrated as she tried to explain to me, first, that all the seats were the same - ergo, there could be no lump in my seat and, secondly, that that button didn't work.  Of course, the language barrier didn't help.  Finally, to prove it to me, she pressed the button on my neighbor's seat.  To her surprise, his lumbar support popped up.  Various flight attendants buzzed round to investigate, but no one could figure out how to unlumbar our seats. So, both my neighbor and I were stuck with seat erections in our backs.  Good for me.  We both squirmed uncomfortably the entire flight.