It’s 2016, my son is seven years old, and we are boarding an airplane. We arrive at our row and the young man in the window seat greets us politely.

My son is angry that this guy has the window seat.

I am surprised by this reaction because my son hates flying. The last time he had a window seat on a plane , he cried out, “Oh no, we’re all going to die!” while we were landing at the airport. He wasn’t trying to scare the other passengers to be mean, he just thought that what he was saying was accurate.

When you’re not afraid of flying, it is difficult to know what will help someone who is afraid to feel better. Apparently, specifically choosing non-window seats while booking the flight is not helpful.

My son is telling me that he wants the window seat and asking me why he can’t sit in the window seat. I explain to him that I chose to not have window seats and I explain why. He is not satisfied with my answer, so I explain that the passenger in the window seat probably also specifically chose his seat, and he chose the window, and it wouldn’t be fair to ask him to switch seats when he specifically chose a window seat and we specifically chose non-window seats. I also explain that we should probably just leave the guy alone because we don’t want to be rude jerks.

“Okay, fine,” my son grumbles. I give him a comic book and he settles down, but his face still looks slightly sulky.

The plane turns on. The engines make all of the voices of all of the passengers sound muffled and hushed. The flight attendants do their safety pantomime in the aisles as the plane crawls slowly around the airport.

Finally, it’s time for the airplane to shoot up into the sky in a diagonal line. My son tries to look out of our neighbour’s window. He stretches his neck back and forth before saying, “Ugh, his head’s in the way!” and collapsing back into his seat in frustration.

We run into the guy from the airplane the next day when we’re returning from a tour. His face brightens when he sees us.

“Oh, hey!” he says, waving and smiling.

“Ugh, it’s him again,” my son says in disgust.