tldr; held up an entire plane because my seat was missing. Some setup for the story: Was in sales, stupidly left Phoenix, AZ to Boise wearing shorts, flew into a snowstorm. They lost my luggage. Stayed two days in Boise with all appointments cancelled, no way to go out and get any clothes. They find my luggage the third day, deliver it to the hotel, I change, go to airport to make next appointment in Seattle. Unidentified problem with plane. Ends up leaving three hours later, lands at SEA/TAC where there is no gate to take us. Wait two more hours. Severe fog rolls in. Miss afternoon appointments as well. Go to hotel, sleep, back to airport in AM, they load us up for the flight to Portland. We wait three hours on the plane. Flight Cancelled. Get evening flight, wait on plane for a few more hours, flight cancelled. Get AM flight, sleep at airport. AM flight goes off without a hitch. Client can't make the meeting. No other clients available to meet. Make calls from hotel. Next morning wake up to go home, John Wayne in SD, California to LAX then home. No hot water in hotel. COLD fucking water in hotel, discover this after getting wet. Go to airport. Flight is delayed. In flight, I tell Flight attendant of my issue that i need to make the LAX flight east, she sympathizes and lets me sit in first class, seat right next to the exit. They phone ahead and tell the LAX flight to hold for passenger. Story starts... I deplane and seek next flight -- all the way across the airport. I run. Arriving at the gate, sweating my balls off, the gate desk person verifies who I am and waves me down the plank. The flight crew are all standing there waiting for me. I get on the plane, and apparently, as I learn later, the captain had announced that this flight would be delayed as they were waiting for a passenger (me) so I'm getting the royal stink-eye from everyone as I walk to the second-to last row of this 737. And there is someone in my seat. A Chinese guy. Like, passport carrying Mainland China not-a-stich of English Chinese. I say to him, umm... you are in my seat. He says something which I can't understand. The Flight Attendant comes on the PA: "Sir, would you PLEASE sit DOWN as we can't leave the gate until everyone is seated." Immediately everyone on this hundred-fifty foot plane turns to glare at me, some hands on the headrest waiting for a show. I glance towards the front from where the announcement came and then back to MY seat. I show the interloper my ticket and point to the seat row/number. He says more gibberish. More hooting and derisive cries from the rest of the cabin. Finally the guy stands up, grabs a couple things from the pocket in the seat in front of him, then bends over and TAKES THE FUCKING SEAT CUSHION off the metal bracket holding it to the floor, moves back a row and places it where i see now that there was a place with no seat/cushion, then sits. HOWLS of laughter from what I realize now are a group of maybe 20 Chinese all surrounding me. I am flummoxed. Again, over the intercom -- " SIR, SIT DOWN. WE WILL NOT LEAVE THE GATE UNTIL YOU SIT DOWN!" I stand there, looking towards the from of the plane. I literally can't think of what to do, so I just stand there. People are throwing stuff at me, heckling and one guy gets up to take things into his own hands. Intercom: "Please STAY in your seats!" The guy sits back down. Chief Flight attendant marches down the aisle, murder in her eyes. She reaches me..."SIR, do you have some kind of PROBLEM." I replied exactly as one of those dreams where you are trying to scream and can only whisper. SO I whispered. "Yes, ma'am, I DO have a problem." She leans in because she can't hear my whisper. I continue in a whisper..."First off, there was a blizzard in Idaho..." She stared at me dumbfoundedly as I explained my week to here, she not interrupting I'm sure because she saw that crazy look in my eyes, ...I finished, "And now I CAN"T FUCKING SIT DOWN, because I don't HAVE A FUCKING SEAT." This was all whispered. Then I smiled at her. I smile like, "you take care of this and we will be good friends." She departs, heads to the front of the plane. Another announcement is made -- Did the announcement say "Please be kind to this gentleman because he literally has no seat to sit on?" No. They say "Please be patient people, we are tying to get this taken care of." Someone throws a cup of ice/coke at me. Hits me square in the knot on my tie, drink splatters over my face and front of my shirt. I stand there stoically while the people cheer. Another announcement. "Please don't throw stuff at the man." Or something like that. Boo's. Finally I see a luggage-guy come down the Aisle with a seat still in the clear plastic wrapper, he comes up to my seat, takes it out of the package and snaps it to the metal bracket. As he leaves I regard the whole plane -- a picture indelibly market in my memory -- of everyone staring at me to see what I would do. I began to give the entire plane the bird, reconsidered, and used the already-begun arm motion to wipe the coke off my face, smiled, then sat down. Got free drinks the rest of the flight.