You "overreacted"? Is that your explanation?

Ryan:  hey bucko, this sounds like you at the movie theater
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/21/delta-passenger-accused-o_0_n_973056.html 

For those of you who don't feel like clicking over:

Shortly after he sat down on the Las Vegas-bound Delta flight on Sunday, Anderson elbowed his seatmate to "claim" the armrest. He then put his foot on the passenger's leg. The passenger then told Anderson to move over.


The complaint says Anderson threatened the passenger saying, "If I have a knife, I would slit your throat." The seatmate reportedly told flight attendants that Anderson reached into his bag a few times with something cupped in his hand.

David and I went to see Bad Teacher.  

(No, it was not that good.  But that's not the point of this story.)

So, if you're done interrupting, we go to see Bad Teacher.  We were running a little late, so in order to ensure a good seat, David got on line for popcorn and I went to secure some prime real estate. 

The midnight showing of the upcoming Footloose remake will attract only the most fervent fans.

I spotted some seats-- you know the type, in the middle, about halfway up-- and made my way over, tossed my bag in one seat and plopped myself in the other.

And that's when I saw them.

Yes, it's absolutely disgusting, but if I don't show you, you'll never learn.

This woman had her bare feet, her ugly, disgusting bare feet, propped up on my arm rest.

Now, I don't have a thing against feet.  Feet are fine.  Hers were ugly.  And more importantly, in my personal space.

Still, things wouldn't have escalated the way that they did if at that moment I didn't hear her muttering to her friend.

"My feet were there FIRST.  If she even thinks that I'm going to move my feet, she can TRY mummblemummble...."

Dear blog readers, rejoice.  I remained calm.  I looked at the feet and then, for some reason, decided to wait until David came back so that it would be clear that I wasn't being selfish in my desire to have her feet off of my arm rest, but rather, that I was there with someone else and that with two of  us there, it would only be reasonable that we would want to use our arm rest.   Or something.

So David gets there.  I give him what some may call my "crazy smile."

I'm fine!

We sit, and as I learn over to say something to him, my arm brushes up against her foot.

Yes, CRINGE.

So I turn around and say, very politely, "Excuse me, but would you mind moving your foot?"

Dear readers, she said NO.

Actually, what she said was more along the lines of, "My foot was there FIRST.  I'm not going to move my foot!  Why should I move my foot?!"

Well, she asked the question, so I was opening up my mouth to answer it when I felt a very subtle pressure on my knee, which is David's code for, "Katie please stop talking."

So I took a deep breath, turned back around and looked over at David.  "Listen, we can just move over-" he started to say.

There was no way I was moving.  If we moved, she won.  And that was not fair.

"Katie, please, we can just move it up.  Stop it, please, we can just move it up."

Since when do movie seats move up?? And why should I have less leg room because of HER??

Much like the marching band, I refused to yield.

This reference is meta.

I turned back around and requested, once again, that she move her foot.  I explained that we wanted to use the arm rest.  I expressed chagrin over the lack of available, actual foot rests in the modern movie theatre, and wondered, rhetorically, what the manager would think of the situation.  Dear readers, I was eloquent.

She said no.

So we sat there for a bit, me silently stewing, when the woman starts to poke me with her foot.

That's when I lost it.

I can't tell you exactly what was said, because I blacked out.  All I can tell you is that when I came to, I was standing, as was this woman and her very large friend.  We were discussing things loudly--

Understatement.

--and I had just told her, rhetorically, other possible places for her to put her foot, when David started pulling me back down.

Dear readers, I was furious.  At this point I was not only furious at the woman, at her feet, at her friend, and at the seat--

Hey! That rhymed!

--but now, I was also furious at David.

So David is frantically giving me the sign to wait a minute, while I am so angry that tears are running down my face and this woman is still poking me with her foot.

And that's when David looked at me, did a deep sigh, and just simply.....raised the arm rest.

My husband is a saint.

UPDATE: My father, the lawyer, was told this story.  He asked why I didn't just elbow her in the foot.