For most of my adult life, I’ve believed that checking in for a flight exactly 24 hours ahead was the airline equivalent of putting on Deodorant—basic, necessary, and shameful if you forget. I’ve treated it like gospel. Like the travel gods would smite me with middle seats and sticky tray tables if I missed that magic window. Until today. Because today, We didn’t check in on time. Not even close. We checked in with about 12 hours to go And the travel gods—who must’ve been feeling generous or bored—rewarded me with Row 9 . Seats A, B, and C. Somehow due to seats and the first class bulkhead Alida had two windows. Let me back up. Jamie, Alida, and I were flying home from San Antonio. We’d been stomping around Texas for days—dodging tourists, ducking into haunted hotels, eating questionable food from unfamiliar places and taking in all the strange charm the city had to offer. And after all that, we were cooked. We just wanted to get home without being wedged next to a crying toddler or a ...