Overhead Bag Compression Has Acquired Standing

The bag fits on the first try.

He knows it fits because he has put the same bag in the same style of overhead compartment on fourteen separate flights and it has fit each time. The bag is soft-sided. It compresses. This is why he chose it.

He puts it in. It fits. He pushes it deeper. The soft sides compress further against the bags already there. He studies the remaining airspace. Four inches, maybe five. Unused. Available.

He pushes it deeper again.

People push a soft bag deeper into an overhead compartment even after it fits because unused space feels like future conflict. The five inches of space are not empty. They are a liability. Someone will board after him and need room, and the room will not be there, and they will look at his bag. It will be his bag's fault.

He pushes again.

The bag is now as deep as it will go. The compartment closes. He sits down and immediately reassesses the weight distribution of the luggage above him from a seated position, which he cannot actually evaluate but does anyway.

Across the aisle, a woman slides her bag in efficiently, closes the compartment, and opens a book.

He has been watching the compartment for six minutes.

The bag is still in there. It fits. He accomplished something by pushing it deeper, though what he accomplished is difficult to articulate. Space was addressed. The potential conflict was managed before it materialized. He has done a thing.

The flight boards. A late passenger tries the compartment. It accepts their bag. The five inches of space that he had compressed his bag against would have been sufficient.

It fits, and he is still thinking about it, and the bag is already stowed, and the bag is already stowed.

He closes his eyes. The bag is in the compartment. The behavior has acquired procedural standing. Next flight, he will push again, because the space will still be there, and the space is still unacceptable, and unused space is future conflict, and he has decided to believe this.