Fried Chicken Lady

This is a long one (especially from my perspective) but worth the read: So I’m on this Continental flight from Houston to Kansas City sitting in the middle seat waiting for the rest of the passengers to board. I am 6 feet tall and weigh around 250 lbs. but easily can fit between the arm rests even though my knees come very close to the seat in front of me. Needless to say, it’s a tight fit.

As luck would have it, an extremely attractive woman gets on board and sits in the aisle seat next to me. I’m thinking, “Well alright, this flight might not be so bad after all.” The flight is obviously full and the last person to get into the plane was a very LARGE woman with a lot of carry on bags squeezing her way down the aisle. I notice that the only seat not taken was the aisle seat in the row right behind me next to a friend of mine who was also in the middle seat. The attractive woman who had already struck up a conversation with me says, “Oh my goodness, what unlucky soul is going to be sitting next to that person.” I turn back to my friend and with a smile say, ” Get ready for a long trip, buddy.”

A moment later this LARGE woman stops squeezed between the row of seats in front of us and rudely says to the attractive woman, “YOU ARE IN MY SEAT!” Ohhhhhh… cruel fate, it was true!!!! The good looking woman got up and sat next to my friend and the LARGE lady crammed her bags where she could and her purse and a plastic sack of “something” under the seat. Of course, she is bulging into MY space with the armrest at a 45-degree angle. Soon the armrest is up (aren’t they supposed to be down for takeoff?) which allows her massive shoulders to intrude onto MY space which causes me to be pushed over into the poor guy sitting in window seat.

While we are taxiing down the runway I notice this woman smells like fried chicken BIG TIME. This flight just keeps getting better and we’re not even off the ground. Now comes the “good” part: Soon after take off, she gets up and with much difficulty grabs the bag and purse stashed under the seat (it was impossible for her to acquire the bag from the seated position). After squeezing back in, this beast tries to put down the “table.” Again, impossible. (You’d think she would have known this but perhaps she thought, “Maybe I lost 100 pounds since the last flight?”) Instead, she wedged her purse between her gut and the seat in front of her. Actually it worked quite well that way. Then, out of the bag comes one of those 6″ x 9″ boxes of fried chicken. I don’t know how they did it but they must have crammed more than half a bird in there complete with a smashed biscuit. As she dove into her meal, me and the guy to my left are about at wits end but I was glad that the source of the smell was actually real fried chicken. Now the entire back half of the plane knew about our dilemma as the aroma wafted through the currents of those little vent jets. The leg and wing went first at break neck speed with the bones being laid to rest in the lid of the box.

The flight attendants were now serving drinks and were forced to plow the cart through the arm fat of this person who was more irritated at having to stop eating than being smashed tighter onto the bodies of us weeping row mates. Now hear this: She orders a beer with a cup of ice! ICE and beer? As she is now maneuvering the box to get out money from her purse, out spills the bones from the lid onto my leg, which then disappear for eternity to the carpet below. This leaves a grease stain on my jeans and she never even acknowledged the incident. No apology. Doesn’t even look my direction. She is way too intent on getting reorganized and that chicken thigh into her maul. That is IT! “Lady, PLEASE keep as much of you and your meal away from me as possible!” With barely a shrug, she keeps on bitin’. The rest of her chicken is gone within minutes then she starts on all of the other goodies in her sack.

All this is made worse by being nudged in the back by my buddy and the laughter from his new girlfriend. Aaaarrrrggghhhhh! The beer arrives with ice and a look of empathy in my direction from the flight attendant who asks, “Can I get you anything else?” I order a double bourbon and the guy in the window seat orders a shot of tequila. Not sure how many drinks are allowed per person on a flight but I got 2 more with a little bit of sympathy from that nice flight attendant. God bless her.

Tagged as: alcohol, flight attendant, food & beverage, odor, portly, seats