Air and space nauseum

Tonight, on the eve of the start of the Catholic Church's Lenten season, all eyes turn to the hedonist haven of New Orleans as the drunken and debauched have the sinner's equivalent of a condemned man's last meal by consuming copious amounts of alcohol and debasing themselves by flashing all sorts of body parts in exchange for a few pennies worth of plastic beads before their forty days of penitent living begins. Sounds like fun to me!

This week, I will be on the road just a few days, flying to the city that wears its sin on its sleeve all year long and doesn't need a religious holiday to cut loose; Las Vegas. I don't know if it a testament to age, sobriety or common sense but, like tonight, I will most likely be snug in my room early in the evening researching another blog instead of pickling my liver on the 24 hour a day playground that is the Strip. They do have free beer at the hotel for a few hours so I may have a few; just to keep my liver from getting complacent.

The anxiety for my trip will be the flight from Utah to Nevada. Flying on Southwest Airlines to save money (sic), for me, is a stressful game of seat mate musical chairs that inevitably has me straddling the aisle because the not-so-frequent flier in the middle's thighs are invading my 17" of ass space more aggressively than Hitler moved in to Poland. Even worse is when they decide to raise the arm rest to its full and upright position which opens the aisle seat to middle seat border to a flood of unrestricted fat emigration equivalent to the rush of East Germans in to Berlin after Mr. Gorbachev finally tore down that wall. Like a svelt sun tanning beach goer on the Thailand coast is washed to sea in a Tsunami, I spend the hour long flight fighting the wave of human flesh trying to push me in to the airplane's aisle and in to the path of an oncoming drink cart.

I do feel for overweight people. As a person with enough miles on my physical odometer to be well out of warranty, I have to choose my meals with more care and spend more time swearing at Tony Horton and his "bring it" routines than I had to before in order to maintain a BMI that keeps me out of the store to buy new pants and off Michelle Obama's obesity radar. I can see how a person's weight can get out of hand. But seriously, at what point does a person who makes a conscious decision to eat another muffin top shortly after seeing their own waistline muffin top over their belt as they dress in morning begin to deserve our sympathy?

There are some who are clinically obese for reasons beyond their control. There are others who aren't. In the news the past few days is self-admitted fatso and highly overrated movie maker Kevin Smith. Mr. Smith was kicked off a Southwest flight when his girth was deemed a safety hazard and thanks to the fact any twit can now twitter to the world instantly, the rotund one was able to gripe, bitch and whine in 140 characters or less. At the root of the problem, and against Mr. Smith's point, is that he had purchased two seats, one for each cheek, on a flight but decided to try and catch an earlier departure. The earlier sardine can that is your typical Southwest Airlines flight only had one seat available for Mr. Smith. Like trying to squeeze ten pounds of Hollywood ego in to a five pound bag, getting the Clerks director in to a single seat proved an insurmountable task and the airline was forced to ask him to deplane. Silent Bob didn't live up to his character name and began tweeting immediately.



In Mr. Smith's defense, he admits he is fat. He is so fat, he knew to buy two seats. So why, when he made the decision to fly earlier than scheduled does he feel the need to condemn Southwest Airlines for enforcing a customer of size rule that he tacitly endorsed by his decision to purchase the extra space for his spare tire?

It can't be easy for larger, o.k. fat, people to fly. But why do they have the right to inconvenience others? Why must I rebuild Hadrian's Wall every time I board a plane to ensure safe haven to enjoy a book? The norms, as Kevin Smith refers to those who must be height weight proportionate, have the right to enjoy their full purchased seat. I view the dividing arm that is the arm rest between seats in the same way I look at a fence surrounding my property. Neighbor, you can do what you want up to the point where you cross it. When the person next to me on the plane begins to ooze under the arm rest I want to yell like the old man in the neighborhood at the the rowdy little kids to "stay off my lawn!" Even worse is when the ground attack of my seatmate's flanks are encroaching on my defensive flanks while there is an air war being waged by the crying baby one row back and the little brother goose stepping his way up the back of my seat.

Perhaps the solution is to make the metal detector we all must go through to enter the terminal the same width as your average airplane seat. If a passenger can't make it through, they don't board the plane! If they can do that, we will only need a way to muzzle children and then, once again, the skies will be friendly to fly.

S2
[ED Note: The staff at NoMatoMiPavo does not despise or condemn overweight people. We understand that you are fully aware, and often painfully and embarrassingly aware, of your size in situations such as a transcontinental flight. Many of you probably work at losing weight and set backs in exercise and diet regimens are harder to overcome every time they occur. But obesity can be overcome. We've seen many people do it. This blog is not meant as an attack on you but simply an effort to show the other side.]