Grossed Out By A Gargantuan Seatmate

March 12, 2010

in Portly Stories

I was so beyond excited to go to Florida and see my grandparents. I got on the plane, found my seat, and sat down to enjoy the first leg of my flight. Everyone who has had an empty seat next to them knows this feeling. You’re watching the faces of every single person get on the plane – wondering if they’ll be your seatmate for the flight. It’s a very intimate thing – considering the seats on airplanes seem to be getting smaller.

It had to be you. You with your 52 waist and XXXL T-shirt. You, having to walk sideways and still slap people in the face with your stomach. I hold my breath as you get slower as you reach my aisle… Then, you asked me to stand up, because you have the window seat. I am terrified for the window seat. I thought people like you got charged for two seats, and here you are, attempting to occupy one? I paid full price for my seat, not half, not a quarter.

I sit back down next to you, or under you, whatever. We try for five minutes to get the armrest down. This is where it gets scary. You lifted up your roll. LIFTED it up, and pulled the armrest down. Your right love handle spilled across the arm rest,into my lap, and pinned my left arm to my side.

After we reached cruising altitude, I freed my hand. You pulled out from your computer bag Burger King and Pizza Hut bread sticks, medium pizza, triple steakhouse whopper, two large fries – devoured. You did not eat – you fed. Your tray table only opened to a 30 degree angle, as the end of it rested on your man titties. Your jugs are bigger then mine, and I almost have DD’s.

Then, you started huffing and puffing. I swear to god, I thought you were going to blow the whole plane down. Your exhales wreaked of marinara sauce and ketchup. Then you grabbed your crotch. I thought maybe you just had a KFC snacker hidden down there, until I realized… You were stroking your inner thigh.

Then you fell asleep on your built in back-of-the-head-fat-pillow, until we landed. I jumped out of my seat over the little lady sitting next to us, grabbed my shit, and booked it. My boyfriend asked me… “Did you see that guy?”

Not only did I see you, I smelt you, felt you, and was almost suffocated by you. Wherever you are, I am not criticizing your weight. I am simply asking that next time you be charged for two seats.

{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }

Clare March 12, 2010 at 7:54 pm

Ewwwww!!

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Harmie March 12, 2010 at 8:30 pm

Oh….my…..GOD…..tears are rolling down my cheeks….can't see….

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Marta March 13, 2010 at 3:34 am

Man titties? Jugs?, OMG that is just so hysterical.

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Chuck Male March 13, 2010 at 3:47 pm

The seats aren't getting smaller, American asses are getting bigger. Regardless, I share the pain. I had a fat ass that literally did take up two seats and completely displaced me up to biz-class as the row I was originally signed was two abreast seating.

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Kad March 14, 2010 at 6:37 am

Chuck, stop it.

You said "two abreast" and an ugly picture filled my mind.

I've had the discussion with Christina, the love of my life, who flies up here (London, Canada) very regularly as a non-rev, about what to do with people who can't fill only the ONE seat they paid for.

In the end, I still stick to my guns, and admire SW for their long-standing policy of charging extra (the Michael Moore thing was stupid, and someone likely lost their job) for PLUS-size people.

It's this, simply. I didn't make you. If you believe in GOD, GOD made you. If you don't believe in GOD, then the universe made you.

If you take two seats, you pay for two seats. I'm not sorry. That's your bad luck in life. My bad luck was having bad knees, and an irritatingly honest way of not caring that you were made differently.

If there are 50 seats on the plane, there should be 50 paying passengers, no? Fatties need to recognize that NO OTHER COUNTRY ON EARTH – ok, Canada is getting close – produces so many fat people. Maoris, and some of the Pacific Islanders are actually quite large, but if you live in such a place, you tend to want to stay there.

I don't buy the argument that it is thyroid, or hormones for all large people, well hormones maybe. It's in the meat we eat. Eat better. Simple math: 2000 calories each day. Eat less than that. You might not have the most ideal body shape, but that doesn't mean you have to accessorize your diet on your flaps.

And try walking. No, pass the refrigerator. Walk to the corner, then the next corner. 4 corners later you will be home. Reward yourself with a glass of water.

Food is an addiction, just like any other. No healthy human wants to look like a cow ready for slaughter.

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MJ March 14, 2010 at 8:33 am

Um, no, food is a necessity. We don't need alcohol or heroin or meth to live. We do need food. That whole "food is an addiction" argument is such bullshit. It's not just Canada that has similar weight distributions, either; Australia, the UK, Germany, Greece, and several other countries have similar levels of overweight and obesity.

On top of this, airplane seats actually have gotten smaller in the past 30-40 years by several inches. So yeah, people are, on average, a bit bigger (though not as much bigger as we want to believe – it's more like 10-20 lbs.) and the seats are smaller.

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Kad March 14, 2010 at 9:35 am

Really MJ? Food can't be an addiction? You need to give your head a shake. Of course some people are addicted to their next sugar fix. That's what big agri supplies the most of these days.

In 1850, the average height of a farmer where I live was 5'4". Today, it is 6'4". In neither case is/was obesity an issue. Fit people in physically active occupations do not get fat. And though large, fit people put their weight on in muscle, a denser material than fat.

Flight crews, despite all the computers, still use a manual guide to estimate passenger weight. That weight was until quite recently 150lbs.

Sedentary humans however, tend to get fat. Why? Because they eat the same amount as active humans. Walking from the door to the car, to the store for food, and then watching 6 hours of TV a day at home, as well as 8 hours in front of a computer screen at work, or standing on an assembly line (basically not moving), means they will spread in all directions.

Aside from the disgusting fact of someone having to pull up a roll of fat to get a seat arm down, and then spilling over onto someone else….(shudders), the math is simple:

2000 calories for a moderately active person. Eat less if you are less moderately active. But most people do not do that. They will go for the 500 calorie breakfast, 800 calorie lunch, and the 1300 calorie dinner. They get fat over time. Add the throwaway snacks (chips, choclate bars), and you have a surplus of food for most people.

Eating is such a part of our cultural marketing, from promoting food products, or promoting weight reduction, that it is easy to see how one could fail to see how much eating is a part of our lives. Some people live only to eat. Eating is a necessity, but not in the amounts that we do.

First link, but there are others that explain why eating is such a problem. Did you know that a lot of food calorie counts are underestimated by 20% or more? http://www.slate.com/id/2244499/

That doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, until you want to fly a heavier-than-air object.

http://www.ntsb.gov/Events/journalist/lessons/LL_http://www.pilotfriend.com/training/flight_traini… <<–150 lbs was an old standard. This is closer to the new one.

If you bother reading the links above, you will notice the discrepancy, and both are recent in transport terms. 30-50 pounds per passenger means a big deal in terms of how the aircraft will handle, not least especially when the pilot uses the wrong numbers. An airplane crashed in southern Ontario a few years ago. The reason? Too many overweight passengers and luggage. Not that the passengers were obese (I'll refrain from 'fat' for now). They, with their gear, were simply too much for the small 20 seater. 30 pounds times 20 passengers equals 600 pounds. The difference between a comfortable takeoff and a breathtaking takeoff followed by an uncontrolled glide into the water. And 23 deaths including the crew.

If you fly on 50 seaters, it might be only 1200 pounds that is the difference, while on a 200 seater, 5000 pounds. Dead weight is dead weight. Somehow it has to get off the ground.

Why should I, as a 155lb person, not be offended personally when a behemoth of 300lbs not only attempts to sit beside me, but is also measured in terms of seat capacity the same as I am? Sometimes I think we should all be individually weighed so the flight crew knows exactly what the weight of the plane is before they start the engines. Or else a basic seat fare plus weight with no deductions if you are under weight.

Bottom line, if you don't fit into your seat, you buy more than one seat. I'm sorry if weight is your disability, but physics doesn't care. And neither do I. I paid for my seat and the ability to get off the ground safely.

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rerere March 14, 2010 at 1:34 pm

hm, chuck

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Kad March 14, 2010 at 2:16 pm

lol. I like chuck too. roasted with some potatoes, onions, garlic, rosemary.

cheers. rerere

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rerere March 14, 2010 at 4:16 pm

Amen Kad

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Tracy March 15, 2010 at 6:05 pm

I had a similar experience when I was a kid and going to visit my Grandmother. I was in the aisle seat and a rather large lady was occupying the middle seat and someone else was in the window seat. To make matters worse the lady in the middle seat had her toddler with her who also had an issue with being overweight. She did not buy this kid a seat since they can sit on your lap up to a certain age – only problem was there was no lap, her stomach hung over her knees when she sat down and she spilled into both seats on either side. The poor kid was fighting with her and fidgeting the entire way (can't blame him for that – he couldn't have been very comfortable) and to top it all off she was still breast feeding him and it was literally right in my face. I'm sure that has something to do with why I detest breastfeeding babies as I was only about 10 at the time and it definitely made an impression of the wrong type. I just don't understand why airlines don't require parents to buy seats for their children as well – everyone would be more comfortable and it's a lot safer – if you can't afford the extra ticket then don't go or drive if you can.

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the logger March 16, 2010 at 2:54 am

On Fat Bastard Airways they could do away with seats completely. So long as they packed the fatties in tight so they were touching, then there would not be any need for seats or safety harnesses, since they would keep each other upright. They would not invade each other’s personal space, since they are so fat, their guts would keep them at least an arms length away from each other. The only downside is if one of them moved quickly (maybe attracted by the smell of a burger that someone had smuggled on to the plane), it would start off a jelly wobble that would propagate through the whole plane and keep going for hours.

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Kad March 16, 2010 at 1:25 pm

I'm pretty sure I shouldn't find this funny, but I do, in a low brow kind of way.

At least it would make a good scene in what would likely be an otherwise forgettable movie similar to idiocracy.

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Kad March 16, 2010 at 1:26 pm

Just thought of it as I was submitting.

Could the jelly wobble be used as some sort of inertial power source for the airplane?

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the logger March 17, 2010 at 12:18 am

Go to this site to view the aircraft to be used for F.B.Airways

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Super_Gupp

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