Cliff Kurt’s Weblog

(Editor’s Note:  This essay was written in 2007.  I came across it in my archives, and thought I’d share it with you.)

You skinny people will never know the dismay that we of large carriage feel when we board an airplane. 

I just arrived in Cincinnati, and am waiting for my connecting flight to Boston.  We came in on a puddle jumper, two seats on either side of a small aisle – 60 seats in all.  Let me tell you about this flight…

As I made my way down the aisle, I saw the familiar looks on the faces of my fellow passengers.   As each sees me coming, angst and worry appear as the passenger hopes I won’t take the seat next to him or her.  I imagine it’s an odd feeling – and one of those situations where time slows to a crawl.  Like the long, insufferable seconds or minutes when you’re waiting to see just how overdrawn is your checking account.

I found my seat with an empty seat beside me, I’m quite sure to the relief of the other 57 passengers.  The only empty seats were in the row directly in front of me, which were roped off because they were broken.  How can a seat be broken?  But broken they were.

The plane was now completely filled save for the broken seats in front of me, and, lucky me, the seat next to mine.  Then it happened. 

A gentleman had been booked into the row in front of mine, but was removed from the small plane.  Since he couldn’t sit in the broken seats, he had to wait until everyone else boarded and then take an open seat.  Any open seat.  Just one open seat.  The seat next to mine.

Normally this wouldn’t be much of a problem, unless the passenger, like THIS guy, is one-and-a-half times my size!  I scarce could believe this dilemma.  The flight attendant was of no help.  She casually instructed him to take his seat against the window.

I stood up to let him in.  He gave me a hang-dog, woeful look and said, “I’m sorry.”  “No apologies necessary,” I assured him.  “At least it’s a short flight.  And besides, we’ll have quite the story to tell our families.”

He took his seat.  And some of mine.  About half of mine.  And I, who normally can barely squeeze into one seat, had to wedge into the microcosm remnants of my former chair.

Our bodies were pressed against each other.  I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began.  The arm rest pressed into my side, and the parts of my body that had any give spilled into the aisle.  Moving, sleeping,  drinking, relaxing – all out of the question.  This was survival.  Plain and simple, pure survival.

I felt like a canned ham, swollen with botulism, ready to spring from my tin casing the moment the little key opens up any swelling room.  Our fellow passengers struggled to avert their eyes, wanting to look at the train wreck but being polite enough not to stare.  But what a sight it must have been.  I recalled the picture of the world’s fattest twins in the Guiness Book of World Records as they rode their little motorcycles down the road. 

Soon enough, the flight ended.  For a few scary moments, I worried we wouldn’t be able to get out of our seats.  I imagined the jaws of life being called in to cut into the side of the airplane.  But I dislodged myself and happily went on my way.

I’m okay with self-effacing humor.  But this poor guy was mortified.  He had no interest in finding the humor in the situation.

I’m sitting at the airport now, ready to board my connecting flight.  As I look around, I am, for the first time, glad to see that I’m the biggest guy at the gate.