Countless accounts of the foot of one passenger occupying the armrest of the passenger aboard an airplane have been reported over the years; and that scenario happened to me recently during a flight — but doing this kept her foot off of my armrest.
Doing This Kept Her Foot Off of My Armrest.
I was sitting in a window seat aboard an airplane recently when I felt a foreign object suddenly bump my left elbow during the flight. I turned around and saw that it was a bare foot in a flip-flop sandal. Not knowing where that bare foot or that flip-flop sandal has been — and not wanting to know, for the potential concern of being repulsed — I grabbed an emergency exit card from the seat pocket and used it to push the offending foot away from my elbow and off of my left armrest.
Within minutes, the foot returned onto my left armrest. I decided to take a photograph of the foot on my armrest with my camera for this article — but before I finished focusing the lens on her foot, she removed it. She definitely saw me with my camera.
The foot never returned to the armrest for the remainder of the flight.
A Foot As a Canvas.
One of the more infamous incidents of a foot of one passenger being on the armrest of another passenger during a flight was recounted in a video that was posted on Instagram several months ago when a passenger woke up to “some random kid drawing on my white socks” — and at least 1,441 comments were posted as a result.
Final Boarding Call
Apparently, taking a photograph — or, perhaps, even pretending to take a photograph — resolved the issue.
The passenger behind me was seated in the exit row; so her seat had extra leg room. She was not a tall person; so she did not seem to suffer from a lack of leg room.
As I could not get a photograph of her foot on the armrest to the left of my seat, I instead photographed the left armrest of the seat in front of me.
Plenty of room was available between the wall of the airplane and the side of the seat; so she had no problem propping her foot on the armrest — nor did she have a problem seeing me attempting to take a photograph of her foot on the armrest, which would have been included in this article.
The main issue is that an armrest was not designed or built to be a foot rest for another passenger — which is why it is called an armrest and not a foot rest. Someone putting their skanky feet in the area that belongs to another passenger is simply disgusting, rude, thoughtless, disrespectful, and classless.
For that matter, feet also do not belong on the wall of a bulkhead — but that is part of the topic of another article.
Could the solution to the issue of a foot on an armrest be the mere passive threat of an anonymous photograph?
All photographs ©2023 by Brian Cohen.
