Fat Guy in a Little Plane

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006
Why can’t I ever sit next to some dashing young man on a plane? We’ve all heard those stories and about people meeting the love of their life 30000 feet over Des Moines or some bullshit- why can’t they ever be me? Why do I have to sit next to the most uncomfortable human beings in the world? This particular flight was a doozie, but of course it was my own just desserts for being so mean and hateful prior to the flight. I board the plane, and I have the first seat on the right hand side, in the aisle. Well of course there is someone sitting in the chair, and of course he weighs easily 400 lbs. So, I ask him if he is sitting in the aisle or window seat, and the stewardess, without any prompting from me or Chubs McGee, pipes up and says, rather loudly “Oh, he has to stay right there”, as though he has been a very bad boy, and seat 1A is his time out chair. I reply that my ticket seems to indicate that I need to stay right there too, so we have ourselves a bit of a pickle. She seems unconcerned with this, unlike the countless passengers who are now backing up in the aisle. I turn to my rotund friend and say I don’t care whether he takes the window or the aisle, but he needs to pick one. So he scoots in, sort of, and I proceed to move in front of my seat, knowing just through shear spacial relations that my ass will in no way fit next to his. Now, I am not a small girl, I think we can all be honest, but I do fit into my chair just fine. No so with my seat mate. He was easily taking up half of my personal space, and on an RJ, where there isn’t a lot of personal space in the first place, this can become problematic.

Here begins the most uncomfortable plane ride of my life.

For those of your who have never ridden the 9:59pm flight direct from Mpls to Wichita, the equipment provided is what is known as an “RJ”, which I can only imagine stands for “Ridiculously Junior”, because this plane is itty-bitty. It is only slightly bigger than uthose radio-controlled planes you see nerdy junior-high boys playing with in the park. Needless to say, you need to get cozy with your neighbor on the best of occasions, but on this particular flight I felt I would soon be able to trace 1A’s anatomy blind-folded. He was literally sitting on me, or rather part of his dewlap was sitting on me. Now, I’m not one to make fun of people for being overweight, and I actually felt quite bad for the guy as it was clear he was intensely uncomfortable, but at a certain point I gotta look out for number one, you know what I mean? So I’m trying very hard not touch him any more than is absolutely necessary, because it’s hot and sticky and I don’t like strangers touching me. I cross my legs, but that shifts my butt over into his fleshy leg. I stick my legs straight out in front of me, but that pushes my lower back so far out of alignment I feel like I’m doing a back bend. Finally I settle on kicking my left leg up high onto the bulkhead in front of me, while hugging my right armrest and keeping my right leg in the aisle. I look like some acrobatic contortionist, much to the amusement of the surrounding passengers, I’m sure. Of course, this means that every time the drink cart comes by, I get slammed in the knee, shoulder, what have you, without so much as an “excuse me” from the loud, obnoxious stewardess, who began the flight informing us that we were going to Tulsa. This same dumb bitch asked me 3 separate times whether or not my ipod was off, because I guess she is unfamiliar with the ways of electronics and did not understand that a blank, black screen equals off, no matter how many times I showed it to her.