Knee Rub on an Airplane

December 3rd, 2019

I am sitting in the middle seat sandwiched between a guy from Germany to my left, taking the window seat, and a lady from London to my right who has the aisle seat. I’m super sweaty from wearing five layers of clothing and feel rather disheveled. I make polite small talk with both people, asking them about their travels.

The plane takes off from Dublin and begins its journey to Heathrow airport in London. As the flight continues, the guy from Germany falls asleep leaning on the window, I read my book, and the lady from London reads her e-book.

Halfway through the journey, the airplane experiences some turbulence and the guy’s hand, palm down on the seat, slides a bit under my left leg. I don’t want to touch his hand, yet I don’t feel comfortable letting his hand reside under my leg. I cross my left leg over my right, folding myself in to the center of the seat and I continue reading my book.

The plane finally makes it to the landing strip and I am beginning to feel relieved and relaxed when I suddenly feel something warm on my left knee. I disregard it initially, believing I was just overheating again from wearing so much clothing. However, as the plane is driving down the strip toward the terminal, I suddenly notice this pocket of warmth moving back and forth over my knee.

Looking down from my book I see a hand, and quickly look over to my left to see the guy staring at me. His pupils are enlarged so much, it is hard to tell what color his eyes are. My pupils are dilated, too. Not out of interest, but out of surprise and fear.

I am not sure what to do, I’ve never been harassed on an airplane before. It was a bit late to begin raising any hassle with the air crew on the plane, so I decide to ignore him and wait. The plane comes to a complete halt at the first terminal of London’s Heathrow airport.

Everyone begins to unbuckle their seat belts, and I loudly slap his hand off my knee. His face turns as red as his ginger hair, he quickly looks down, bites his lower lip and wrings his right hand out of pain.

All at once, everyone on board rises from their seats to start grabbing their carry-on luggage. The guy turns to me at this point and has the audacity to then introduce himself, right as everyone is beginning to disembark the plane. He tells me his name is Hane, that he’s a secondary school teacher from Munich, and that it was a pleasure meeting me. He proceeds to ask me where I’m headed to and I simply tell him, “Definitely not Germany!”

He laughs and excuses himself to join the queue leaving the plane. I am in no hurry to leave since Simon and I have a seven-hour layover in the airport. I make sure to wait until almost everyone is off the plane. I want to leave with Simon and ensure myself that I won’t meet Hane again on our way to catch our connecting flight.