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Hi, everyone!
If you’re into informative and fascinating docuseries, Netflix’s Babies is pretty great.
Ramble of the Day
Carli Lloyd, world famous footballer and frequent plane traveler, recently told a story on Twitter about a person who was sitting behind her on a plane. It wasn’t a great time.
I let it go at first. Then it happened again. I turned back and gave him a look. Then shut my eyes again. He then started up again. I finally turned around only to find him telling me he had no room to put his feet anywhere and he wasn’t doing it on purpose.
— Carli Lloyd (@CarliLloyd) February 21, 2020
And then he mumbled that none of this would happen if I didn’t recline my seat. I told him he should have purchased a first class seat if he needed more room. He stopped talking and touching my seat. Since when did it become ok to act like this n push someone’s seat repeatedly?
— Carli Lloyd (@CarliLloyd) February 21, 2020
I have little to no analysis on Lloyd’s story, but it did remind me of one my great sources of nerves: the reclining seat on an airplane. Between this story and several of my own experiences, I’ve realized that the reclining seat causes a lot of drama on planes, and it is one of the few types of drama I have genuine trouble with.
I remember the first time I attempted to recline a chair on a plane. I was nine and had no idea what I was doing, so an awkward event followed in which the adult behind me had to help me push the seat back up. I really did not care for interactions with strangers at the time, let alone ones that I perceived tense because I was afraid of getting things wrong, so you can imagine how that set up for a disinterest in attempting to recline my seat ever again.
My feelings about reclining seats on planes have evolved since. I spend too much time thinking about the discomfort of the person behind me on planes, which is why I don’t recline my seat. I’m aware that isn’t something everyone can get away with — there are good reasons to recline your seat, so that’s why I don’t get anywhere close to causing a fuss when the person in front of me reclines their seat. I could, of course, enjoy my flight more if I recline my seat, and there’s nothing stopping the person behind me from reclining their seat, but why risk the drama? I’m only going to be here for five to ten hours.
I can inherently relate this to the generally awful experience of air travel, and wanting to minimize any amount of drama so I can seamlessly get on the plane and then just as seamlessly get off it to enjoy all of the time I won’t be on a plane. In the end, I think this is just a long way of me saying that air travel sucks for the average person, and I really wish it sucked at least a little bit less.
tl;dr: Reclining airplane seats are a great source of nerves for me, and if I want to, I can just chalk it up to air travel being generally terrible.
Links of the Day
Inter Milan’s Europa League tie with Ludogorets will be played behind closed doors with continuing coronavirus concerns in Italy.
Bradford City sacked winger Tyrell Robinson after he was charged with a child sex offense.
The English, Scottish, and Irish FAs have updating heading guidelines, saying children from ages six to 11 should not head the ball during training.
Megan Rapinoe will host Prodigy for Quibi, a docuseries profiling eight athletes under the age of 21, including RB Leipzig’s Tyler Adams.
Today’s longer read: Ewan Murray on Glasgow City, Scotland’s 13 time reigning champions, and the state of women’s football with increased investment from Rangers and Celtic for The Guardian