My husband and I fly Nothing Special class. Wheelchair passengers board first, because no one has figured out how to maneuver a wheelchair on an otherwise-occupied plane. These are followed by the pay-for-status boarding group, a cherished American axiom, which on JetBlue is Mint, then Extra Space. Current and former military personnel are somewhere in there, too. Next comes Needs Assistance, including Traveling With Small Children. Then at the end, Nothing Special.

We always book a window and aisle seat, and fly with an actual empty seat between us one in ten tries. Most often we have the slighter, but real, pleasure of offering the person scheduled to sit between us the window seat. The person may make a play for the aisle seat–which my husband claims–but the concept of switching has never been contentious. Until our recent flight from San Francisco to Boston.

We found a young woman of Chinese descent in the middle seat and made our offer. She notified us that she was traveling with her mother, who spoke no English and was seated in the middle seat across the aisle. The occupants of the other two seats on that side turned out to be a young couple traveling with an unticketed 22-month-old.

Sigh. I remembered booking my grandmother into a roomy bulkhead seat for her first flight from Dallas to Boston. She was joined there by a couple with twin infants. She was impressed when the mother used naptime to clip the babies’ nails.

My moment of ruefulness vanished as my organizational skills kicked in. Clearly the roomiest solution for young family was the two aisle seats, did they agree? Yes. Would the two Chinese women mind sitting middle and window on the far side? They would not. My husband and I took the other middle/window, and we were all sorted well before pushback. As I settled in with my book, I thought, Did I just order all those people around? 

The situation played out in two unexpected positive ways. The boy was adorable and winsome, with nary a whimper even during the descent, and the parents patient and creative; together they were quite charming seat mates. Then about three hours into the flight, the purser came to thank me for working out the seating plan, offering me a complementary cocktail.

I chose sparkling wine. I felt a little bit Special.