Man, I hate that! My response would have been to smile nicely and say, "F%^& off."

Well done, SchmeckFlyer! Don't be embarrassed, be proud!

Wow, not even bothering with preliminaries. I'm trying to decide whether it would be worse to be stuck next to the married Mile High Club aspirant or an overenthusiastic evangelist.

Either way, thank God for earplugs!

I work for a Very Large Software company and was stuck, one day many years ago, in the middle exit row seat between two guys who obviously worked together. I offered to move to the aisle or window but they didn't want to move. And they spend the whole flight talking across my head.

I realized five minutes into the ride that they worked for our Major Competitor and that they were discussing a Major Deal where they had inside information that our sales guys had missed.

I put on my headphones (no music) and took notes on my laptop as they detailed their entire strategy and their insider information.

When we got up I got another pax between us and, as I was preparing to go down the aisle I said: "I work for Very Large and know the sales manager on Major Deal - I'll be sure to send him these notes tonight."

Then I skedaddled.

Classic! Worthy of Churchhill indeed.

I had a really strange one just this week. I was in an exit row aisle and I was one of the last pax to board. A woman in her mid 20s was in the middle seat. I sat down and a second later she said "Sh!t!" quite loudly. I asked her what was wrong. "Well, I don't have very much room," she said. "Neither do I," I replied. That was the last we said to each other for the 2hr+ flight.

I am not a midget but then I am not obese either and I try to be very courteous when in Y in terms of letting the other person use the armrest etc. I didn't really appreciate the greeting I got from this young lady.

Sounds like Delta's last line: "Do you want to book a hotel stay or a car rental today?"

(emphasis mine)

LOL! Nice way of putting it!

I was flying Air Portugal EWR-LIS, sitting next to a guy whose wife and child were in front of us. They were talking amongst themselves mostly in English and sometimes in German, while I spoke to the crew in Portuguese and chatted to a lady across the aisle in English.

As we started taxiing, the wife turns back to the husband:
She: Aren't you going to make conversation with your travel mate (me)?
He: Why?
She: Just to be nice and polite.
He: I don't have to talk to strangers. I'm not here to make friends.
She: Say, at least, "Have a nice flight".
He: No, I don't care.

They said all that in German, thinking it would be some kind of private conversation, but I do happen to speak German too.
If the conversation had gone ugly (about me), I would react, but it wasn't necessary.

I can relate to the the comment about the missionaries...

In April 2005, I flew from Hong Kong to Jakarta and sat across the aisle from two members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They tried to con me into their game, but I argued with them, thus making the flight go faster.

On my way back a few days later, I sat next to, in fact a member of the same church, but this one was telling me about how he helped out Vietnamese refugees make do in Hong Kong after that conflict had ended in 1975. Now, I understand that the employer of these people is not the weird part of this story, but the fact that I sat next to missionaries on each leg was a little more amusing.

also, in 2001, I sat next to an older woman on a flight from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh who hit me with her cane each time I got up.

Very funnny. I got the impression they'd been having similar conversations for years.

Some years ago, I was seated in F next to a much older, wholly unappealing man who was utterly immersed in Hustler. He had some suggestions about what we might like to do when we landed. He was just downright nasty.

That's one of the funniest things I've ever read.

I think the appropriate response would be, with a perfectly straight face, to tell the wife that it's okay, that her husband has no obligation to talk to strangers. Then you wait a second and smile just a little.

Early into a 5 hour flight the person next to me started complaining that he couldn't smoke (this was in the early 90s) and proceeded to pull out a pack and fidget with a cigarette. I thought for sure he was going to light up...and then...he ate the damn thing.

I recently had a meeting in Paris. So, I brought my wife and we bracketed the short stay at the mediocre meeting hotel with short stays at two very nice Paris hotels.

In the waiting area before boarding our return flight, my wife and I got into a conversation with a somewhat older couple who had come to Paris to celebrate an important anniversary.

The woman asked where we had stayed, and I said, "Three different hotels."

She asked, "Which was the nicest?"

I said, "I can't say which was the nicest, but I do know which was the worst. It was the _____."

Of course, that was the hotel they had stayed in.