On a recent flight, I volunteered to switch to what I thought was going to be a better seat - and it wasn't! I was assigned to a middle seat. I dislike middle seats, but this was the best version of that - small people on either side of me, relatively comfortable seat. Well, I was sitting just in front of the exit rows, when I overheard a stewardess tell a man that he couldn't sit in the exit row because he didn't speak English (and presumably couldn't read the card, etc). She scanned the immediate vicinity and asked for volunteers, and of course I raised my hand. I went from a middle seat to a window in an exit row with a lot of extra leg room - score! (or so I thought) Then, as we're waiting to get the go-ahead to take off, this poor little boy behind me was sitting with his daddy, but decided he wanted mommy RIGHT NOW, and started to wail about. I felt really bad for the little guy, but he was literally screaming in my ear. To make matters worse, the seat was really uncomfortable, as if the back were too far back for the contours of the seat. My back still hurts from a measly 1.5 hour plane ride. Serves me right for trying to "upgrade" I guess.