Among the many inconveniences of air travel is the battle of the armrest.
To whom does the single armrest belong, we ask. Is it a fence that separates strangers or is it an award for the person in the dreaded middle seat? Is using it just survival of the fittest or is it a courtesy extended?
Fret no more. A new product might solve the problem for those who feel they must have possession of the armrest.
Arthur Chang came up with a solution that turns a single armrest into a double armrest, presumably appealing to those who learned to share as a child. Called Soarigami, the $20 portable device latches onto the armrest and creates a two-elbow space.
Chang told The Wall Street Journal that it is a nice conversation piece. If you bring it with you, he says, and offer it to the closest passenger, it give you a kind of moral triumph. "[If] they refuse then you kind of won the armrest fair and square," he says.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.