Leg Room

To hear people talk, leg room is the biggest reason they don't fly any more. Upgrade to first class to get more leg room. Argue your way into the emergency exit rows to get more leg room. Walk across the Atlantic instead of flying to get more leg room. I think people are just using this as a "safe" explanation for why they hate to fly. Myself, I hate the security guards, who are like policemen but without the probable cause, and the fact that I have to wear my coat (if it's cold out) in the 80-degree airport, because it's too bulky to do anything else with, making me sweat like a cocaine smuggler whose condoms have just burst inside his stomach.

But when it comes to leg room, I must be missing something, because I have never suffered for lack of leg room, and I say this as the possessor of the longest legs I know. Oh sure, my legs have gotten cramped from sleeping in a little bed, or from just being seated for ten hours in a row. Anybody's would. But are airplane chairs very uncomfortable? When I sit in an airplane seat, my knees don't bump the chair in front of me, even if the owner has reclined it (in which case it's more of a can't-breathe issue). I can fit my feet well under the chair in front of me, without hitting my shins on the bottom. In short, I can place my legs in any "normal" leg position with perfect comfort. Either I have so much leg that I have left behind common paradigms of leg room, or most people are just whiny.

I have a feeling that what most people are talking about is their legs *falling asleep* on long trips. This happens to me too, especially because I am thin and all the arteries are close to the surface. Definitely not a problem of leg room though, and only a problem because you're sitting in the same place for so many hours, whether airplane or swively office chair. If you want to get up and stump around the cabin between Hawaii and Australia, I don't think anyone is prepared to stop you. You don't just have to sit there and complain.