“That’s my seat.”

I always find it funny when in a bus, a person comes to me and almost triumphantly announces while pointing at the window seat next to me, “That’s my seat.” The glee that spills out of their voice in that moment is unmistakable- and it greatly annoys me.

With their ticket usually not so far away from somewhere on them, ready to be whipped out in case of even the mildest protest on my part, I can sense the weight of their ego-filled satisfaction almost falling off of their bodies to crush poor me. That ticket is proof of very many things one among of which is the fact that the seat is very much theirs; and two, the fact that they booked it earlier.

More often than not, it has been said to me even before I ask anything at all -usually a confirmation of the seat number -as I’m often already asleep on my seat and rarely respond lightning fast as their fantasy must have informed them that I should. I mean, they are the “Lord of the Window Seat.”

“I booked this early,” they say. “At midday, even.” This is really early booking when the bus is a midnight bus.

Now all of this window seat business is genuinely understandable to me: the window seat is an award of sorts. It is a reward for timeliness and shrewdness. It represents planning and the pinnacle of good travel choices. I get it, but this is why I laugh: I hate the window seat.

You could never pay me to sit at the window. In fact, if my triumphant announcers were keen enough, they would notice that I never even attempt at all to sit there even when in waiting. I do not want to. I have no desire for it. I could never. I would rather sit on the floor of the bus corridor or even down under the bus, in the boot.

First of all, I dislike to travel passionately. I would rather not. It takes me an average of 8 to 12 hours to effect a decision I have made to travel. The time between when I make the decision to travel and when I actually do is one of my most stressful. Therefore, I am already bored by the time I get on that bus. Once on it, I have only one ambition: to die, er, sorry, sleep.

To sit at the window, thus, is a direct violation of that ambition. Opening and closing windows to adjust the wind flow, then opening them during that time when people are buying edibles are my absolute worst things to do. I absolutely hate to have to pass people their wares; tomatoes, pineapples and the like. This is especially since I travel light myself.

I also have motion sickness and can hardly tolerate anything to eat when on the move. Looking at the phone screen when traveling also makes me nauseous. It is just stresses from every system of my body assaulting me from every end.

So, when I see people with their puffed up little egos come to announce to me that theirs is the window seat, I wish they knew that I never even wanted to be there on the bus in the first place.

When I travel, I am cargo. Nothing more, nothing less. Cargo does not eat or talk. Cargo sleeps. Cargo does not pass across pineapples and chicken drumsticks. And it definitely does not care whether it gets a seat at the window.