Well, I got a great laugh out of that. Maybe the wife was secretly happy to have that C boarding pass! She probably hoped that she could sit anywhere but near the old coot.
My DH sits in the middle seat & if we're separated by boarding #s, I go on first & sit in the window. I save the middle seat for him, but he's never more than 20 people behind me, so I don't get any flak for it.
I had one instance where we boarded a connecting flight with late Bs and we needed to deplane as quickly as possible due to a timed bus connection. I made someone pretty unhappy in the aisle seat of row 3 when I asked about the middle & window. He clearly hoped to have the whole row to himself, but I sat down anyway...........