Adjust Your Seat Backs, Tray Tables…and Attitudes

I am typing this in Seat 21 E, on American Flight 1243 from Washington National to Miami. It’s a packed Boeing 737, and the “E” in 21 E, a middle seat, might as well stand for “excruciating.” Flying these days amounts to a series of skirmishes for space. There’s the scramble for the overhead compartment; the flexing of legs and knees to limit the backward surge of the seat in the next row up; and, for me in 21E, the maneuvering of my left elbow to outflank the wily right …