Challenge accepted, Bro (Thats how they say it in CA, right?)

So spd476 comes here to ask an honest question about traveling with his kid. You preach about how you are the one able to determine if it is an "emergency" or not (not sure why you are hung up on that term).

The real story here is about being human. I know you are too busy/important to hold open a door for someone or hold the elevator, but the rest of us value those little things that make society a pleasant place. It makes me happy when folks I don't know take a split second to make my day easier and I take pleasure in doing it back to them.

So lets fast-forward to airplane time...an even more public space (because you clearly cannot afford a private jet). Everyone is stuffed into a metal tube and it should be a time for general humanity and pleasant social interaction to be practiced at it's highest level by all.

Since you clearly plan ahead and have never been IROP'ed before or had flight plans change last minute...these rest of us are not that lucky. So a dad/son, husband/wife, business partners, etc are split up. They would clearly rather be rubbing shoulders and having small talk with their acquaintance rather than you.

So a guy like spd476 gets on the flight, probably just a guy being a good dad who needs to take his kid somewhere (you had a dad too that I hope acted the same way)...and you will treat him like such an incompetent idiot for something YOU deem is not an emergency? Who the hell are you?

Now we all agree that, as the owner of your seat, you have the right to keep your seat (especially if you are offered an inferior one)...but please do not be so belittling to innocent spd476. If he asks you to move from 19C to 18C to sit with his son (and you are traveling alone, and the guy in 18B is not 300 lbs)...there is literally not one negative iota of feeling that I can offer to this guy! I will happily say "Sure! Please take my seat"...and I imagine that most decent folk that we bump into in this game of life would be more than happy to do the same. If anything, I got a better seat and I am happier that I made someone else's day a little brighter.

Now when someone squats in my seat and rudely demands I switch to what I judge as an inferior seat...I do not put up with that entitled attitude at all and quickly begin to not care at all. However, that is not the situation we were dealing with here.

I have never seen a thread on FT full of such grumpy people before. This gives us a bad name and really zaps the joy out of things.