Airborne Corpulence

The gentleman in Seat 31E on the April 20 8pm flight from ORD to PDX, should be paying for part of my seat. Here's how I see it:

I understand that airline travel is not supposed to be comfortable or luxurious. You pay airlines a few hundred dollars. For this number you get to deal with sub-human customer service representatives (with a few wonderful people sprinkled in...just to keep you hoping!), forced to stand in no fewer than three long lines, poked and prodded by TSA primates who seem able to miss handguns aplenty, but will sniff out every last four ounce bottle of shampoo. If you survive this, you get crammed like sardines into a flying tin germ trap. That makes sense.

But here's the problem; these seats have a maximum width. Unfortunately, some of the people who inhabit them do not. And lest you think I'm being harsh, Gentle Reader, we're not talking about folks who are "overweight", or "carrying a few dozen extra pounds", or even "obese." If an NFL lineman gave any advice to the gentleman in Row 31, it would be, "Dude, you need to lay off the double-thickburgers!"

Here's where we get into the unique properties of fat. You see, in copious amounts fat behaves like a liquid, spilling over the cusp of whatever is feebly attempting to contain it -- in this case, an armrest. And because one can't pull one's scapulae together for an entire cross-country flight, occasionally one's elbow relaxes and sinks ... into a sea of simple carbohydrates only barely covered by sweat-damp polo.

This, my friends, is not a healthy feeling.

As such, about 25% of my seat was uninhabitable. I feel that the gentleman in the middle should definitely pick up the tab.