The A’s, the Bs, the Cs and the Fat One

To Los Angeles. Even when I have no luggage and my seat is assigned, I board the plane as early as possible and settle into my seat so I can watch other passengers. Airplanes offer some of the best people-watching, and Southwest offers the best of all. A close study of Southwest passengers shows that class feeling does not require a permanent class structure; it can erupt out of nothing more than a seating order.

I once had the pleasure of being the sole passenger remaining on a continuing Southwest flight. I watched every one of them, from the first A, with his massive wheeled steamer trunk, to the last C, struggling to keep the lower half of his body from being sawed off by the closing passenger door and checked in the luggage compartment.

The A’s have an upper-class sense of ease about them. They enter with their ideal seat in mind, certain they are going to get it. The Bs are the striving, sweaty middle class. They have only hope, not certainty. The fleetest among them might get the seat of their dreams; the slowest will be sniffing toilet fumes. The Cs have no choice of seat or luggage bin or anything else, but, interestingly, they are not as anxious as the Bs, as they had no hope to begin with. Their only choice is attitude toward their fates -- simmering resentment or resignation.

At any rate, today I find myself watching for something new -- my seatmate. There was a time when an aisle seat freed me from concern about who might sit beside me. But two flights ago, I had an unpleasant shock: a man so fat that he needed at least two full seats for himself. The stout woman in the window seat was going nowhere, and so as the man squeezed between us, his fat had nowhere to go but out. It rose up magnificently, tsunami-like, and lifted me like a small boat right out into the aisle.

We were both so embarrassed that neither of us said anything. The flight attendant rushed up, whispered apologies and said this sort of thing happens so frequently that her flight crew has an informal -- and illegal -- policy. On takeoff, I should turn my back to the fat man, perching my bottom precariously on the remaining exposed half-inch of seat, and sit with my legs and torso jackknifed over the aisle. After takeoff, she would come and collect me, and sit me in her jump seat.

I have now lost my interest in the nuances of human behavior in boarding airplane passengers: I’m just looking for the fat man. In the last few weeks, I’ve become an authority on what is clearly a crisis.

I know, for example, that Canadian airline authorities have determined that at least one fatal airplane crash was caused by the excessive weight of the plane because the airline hadn’t properly accounted for its passengers’ new fat. From now on, Canadian airlines must raise their estimates of passenger weight -- 13 pounds for every male, 25 for every female. To accommodate the increased body fat, Canadian airplanes will be forced to jettison fuel and baggage. (And if you think that Canadians are causing the problem, think again.)

I also know -- from a friend who just returned from Singapore -- that Singapore Airlines, fed up with the discomfort to others caused by the fat American tourist, is considering weighing not just the bags but the passengers too, and charging them accordingly. We Americans have grown so fat that we face the spectacle of being hauled onto scales across Asia, like hogs at a state fair.

Why do I think it will help to spot the fat man in advance?

I don’t really know.

I’m flying United, I have an assigned seat, and so will he. It isn’t as if I can escape him. My new fixation is pure superstition: Somehow, if I see the fat man before he sees the open seat beside me, I can, like Uri Geller bending a spoon, steer him in another direction with my brain waves.

It isn’t long before the character in my imagination waddles onto the plane. He comes with a single audacious carry-on: a plastic bag containing not one, not two, but three large boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. (This, too, I have seen before, and not only in nightmares. You can’t go anywhere in the United States without bumping into a Krispy Kreme doughnut, so why does a man flying from Oakland to Los Angeles feel he needs to carry 36? Does he fear that Los Angeles has run out of doughnuts?)

He squeezes his way down the aisle. Then I see that everyone is keeping an eye on him, with a kind of hatred, thinking the same thought: Please, God, don’t let him stop here!

It isn’t until he passes that I am able to feel anything like pity. Which tells you something about pity. Like fat, it’s a luxury.