Tough Sh*t: Life Advice From a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good (22 page)

Again, Grandma asked, “
Whaaaat?
”

So at this point, I went for broke: I was making a bigger mime show out of one word than I ever did in six cinematic turns as Silent Bob, almost willing myself into a balled-up sponge, singing, “
Squiiiiiiiiishhhhhhh …”

Finally, she said, “I’m fine.” So I turned back to Ms. Panic and said, “They don’t care. They’re not complaining.”

But Ms. Panic would not be moved on this matter. “Yeah, um, I’m sorry. Please, this is really … We’ll try to make it up to you at the desk, but the captain needs—”

“The captain can’t even see me, ma’am,” I protested, indicating the bulkhead wall clearly impeding my view of the cockpit, as well as any pilot’s supposed corresponding view of me not fitting into my seat. “I was in my seat for twelve seconds when
you
came all the way down from your station to my seat on the plane. I had literally
just
sat down, and I couldn’t see the cockpit. If I can’t see the cockpit, then how could the
pilot
see me to make this determination at all?”

I leaned all the way across the woman sitting to my left to illustrate how even then, the pilot and I couldn’t see each other, but Ms. Panic’s expression never changed to indicate compassion or understanding. “The captain’s saying you’ve got to get up, sir.”

And this was the moment I dropped any indignation and give her the next Kübler-Ross stage: depression.

“Please don’t do this to me, ma’am …,” I said, realizing
I was at the mercy of an institutional mentality. “There were people who recognized me when I got on the plane. Everybody will see.”

I might as well have been talking to the toilet in the three-inch airplane bathroom. Ms. Panic simply smiled at me blankly and held the company line. I realized I had two moves: Either I dig in, refuse to get up, and defiantly keep the seat I paid for, or I bail as instructed. All that was running through my head now was, “Everybody’s gonna know. Everybody on this plane is gonna see me stand, collect my bag, and get off this plane, and they’re either gonna assume I’m too fat or guess I’m a shoe bomber!” I wanted to say, “Go get the captain!” but it’s tough to kick up a fuss on
any
post-9/11 flight. You could end up Tased by an undercover air marshal or take a fork in the neck from a vigilant passenger. If I got lippy, they might have used that dog stick on me with the neck loop on the end.

I didn’t go all Ben Kingsley in
Sexy Beast
, calling out during my forced exit, “I hope this crashes into the sea!” Instead, I quietly got up and moved to collect my bag from the overhead compartment across the aisle. But as I did this, I made perfect eye contact with a man three rows behind me who was
far
fatter and wider than I am—and he was also squeezed into a middle seat.

I could’ve pointed out my brother from a fatter mother. “
What about tubby?
” I could’ve bellowed. “He’s twice the man that I am!” But I would never throw a fellow fatty under the bus—or the plane, as it were—so I said nothing. But in the moment our eyes locked, the windows to his soul were filled with fear, and he was desperately, wordlessly begging me, “Please don’t tell I’m fat … Please don’t tell
I’m fat …” He saw a chubby taken away in shame, and it filled him with terror. “It’s finally happened! They’re comin’ for the fatties! They’re taking us to Candyland to kill us all!”

It was time for the final Kübler-Ross stage: acceptance. I collected my bag and disembarked, waiting just outside the door for Ms. Panic. After five minutes of waiting, I slowly headed up the Jetway, dragging my bag behind me pathetically. I waited by the desk for Ms. Panic to emerge from the plane. And waited. And waited. I looked at my phone: Eight minutes I waited.

That’s when I realized I’d forgotten a key Kübler-Ross stage …

Anger.

Oooh, I was pissed now, and getting even more so. I honestly feel like the old Kevin Smith died on that plane, prior to disembarking. You don’t
ever
treat a paying customer the way they treated me that evening. And I realize that sounds ironic coming from the guy who made
Clerks
, the tagline for which was, “Just because they serve you doesn’t mean they like you.” Irony aside, I wanted satisfaction fast, or I was gonna unleash the kraken.

Ms. Panic finally got back to the desk, all polite smiles, saying, “I’m sorry about that …”

“Ma’am, what’s the name of the pilot?” I asked, tapping at the keys of my iPhone’s memo pad. “The pilot who said I was too fat to fly.”

“Nobody said that …,” she countered at the counter.

But I had a pretty good counter of my own ready to go. “Then why am I off the plane?”

“Nobody said you were fat, sir …” Ms. Panic rolled her eyes.

“Then why was I pulled off the plane?” I demanded.

“There were safety concerns,” Ms. Panic repeated.

“What safety concerns are you talking about?!” I barked in a composed manner.

“There is a space allotment for each seat, and you were taking up more than your space allotment.”

And I said, “Just say
fat.
”

“I didn’t say
fat
,” she said. “That’s your word, not mine.” They’re so terrified of lawsuits, they phrase the insult they say to your face very carefully as “taking up more than your allotted space.” That’s just bullshit, PC double-speak for “Hey, you’re fat.”

I said, “Lady, I’m not gonna sue you for calling me fat. I’m telling you I’m fat. But don’t sit here and dance around with euphemisms for fat. Like, just be honest with me.”

Instead, she told me, “I can offer you a one-hundred-dollar travel voucher, sir.”

“
That’s
your idea of making it better?” I asked. “You give me a one-hundred-dollar voucher for humiliating me?”

“Well, what would make it right?” she asked.

“Get me on a helicopter home!” I spat out, only slightly exaggerating. “Or get me on a private jet home! Your airline pulled me off a flight with no reason and embarrassed me while doing it! So make it better!”

After thirty seconds of a blank stare, I told her, “Never mind. Just gimme the pilot’s name, ma’am.”

“Why?” she asked again.

“Because of the many things I do, I’m kind of a quasi-journalist. And I’m gonna talk about this in a blog or in a podcast, so I need the pilot’s name—because you said he booted me off the plane. Is that true?”

“Why would I say that if it wasn’t true, sir?”

“I just don’t know how the pilot could’ve seen me. I’d been in my seat for less than a minute and I couldn’t see him around the bulkhead.”

“There are mirrors on the plane,” she argued.

“Yeah—in the
bathroom
,” I scoffed. “Ma’am, you still have to tell me why I was ejected from that flight.”

“There are safety issues—”

“Ma’am! What does that mean?!” I demanded. “Does that mean I’m gonna explode all over the plane?!”

Sensing she was hitting a wall with me, Ms. Panic called for a manager. When the manager joined us, his expression screamed, “Why did I have to catch this late-in-the-day bullet …” After Ms. Panic gave him the details, Mr. Manager said, “Southwest policy says you have to be seated comfortably with the armrests down.”

“But I
could
put the armrests down!” I shot back.

Neither Mr. Manager nor Ms. Panic ever had a response for that. The Southwest “customers of size” policy makes a big deal about the armrests, but that wasn’t getting me anywhere with these two, who didn’t seem to understand my frustration at all. But how could they? They were both physically fit, and physically fit people don’t have a clue how much planning goes into the average chubby funster’s day. I would
never
choose a seat if there was a fraction of a chance that I could not fit into it. That’s how I live my life! I’m a fat person! We navigate the world differently than other people. We have to think ten steps in advance for the sake of what little dignity we’re afforded in this image-conscious, judgmental society.

All I wanted to do was get out of there now, so while I
was waiting for some Southwest satisfaction, I thought about driving home from the Bay Area. I abandoned the idea when I realized the trip would take three times as long as a normal drive, because I’d be pulling over steamy every three minutes to post tweets. “And another thing! Southworst Err-lines can eat my big fat ass!”

Mr. Manager offered me a brochure, saying, “On the back of this is the address for the corporate office. You can write to them with any complaints.”

“I don’t have to write to Southwest, buddy,” I said. “In an hour, Southwest is gonna come looking for
me.
”

I walked away and sat down at another gate, where I started tweeting about the incident, attacking Southwest for their insensitive behavior. If I had any less self-esteem, I would’ve been in tears, bawling. But I recalled the lessons of childhood and the simple adage my parents used to say to me when I was a grade-schooler:

“If someone fucks you, and you don’t wanna be fucked, then tell people: Start screaming.”

So I screamed with tweets …

On and on it went as I hammered Southwest Airlines to 1.6 million on Twitter. They embarrassed me, I embarrassed them right back. And while I know that the president of Southwest Airlines didn’t boot me off the plane, and while I also know the unlucky soul who runs that Southwest Twitter account didn’t red-flag me, if you sling hash for an organization that fucks with me and mine, then you’re getting dragged into it, too. Welcome to the party, pal!

And after almost an hour of tweeting, somebody got fuckin’ scared shitless—because Mr. Manager came to find me. I saw him race by me at first, clearly on a desperate
hunt. Then, when he doubled back, he saw me leaning against a wall across from my new gate. He sprinted over and breathlessly coughed, “Mr. Smith—please stop tweeting!”

He told me I was handled poorly and he wanted to make it up to me by ensuring I got out of Oakland (and tweeting distance) as soon as possible on the next Southwest flight to Burbank. I told him I was already holding section A seats, which would allow me to board first. He offered me the $100 travel voucher again, which I declined, but the dude had his marching orders, and they were to get me on another Southwest flight home, ASAP. So even though I insisted on boarding when my section was called, Mr. Manager escorted me onto the next flight when the doors opened—which was embarrassing because everyone else in line stared. And even though I had the whole plane to choose from, I immediately hurled my fat ass into the first available seat: a window seat in the bulkhead, this time on the other side of the plane. When I got onto that flight, the most important thing in the world to me was buckling my seat belt without incident.

As the rest of the passengers boarded, I read all the response tweets and Twitter reactions to my earth-scorching Southwest diatribe. While I was being force-boarded onto my flight home, Southwest Airlines reached out via Twitter, asking me to get in touch with them. So I tweeted some more …

I snapped a picture of myself with my camera phone and tweeted what became a very popular image accompanying every rendition of this story: me in one seat, puffing out my cheeks to look fatter. I included the message …

I continued tweeting until takeoff …

While I was tweeting pre-takeoff, a large girl—big like me—sat near me at the other end of the aisle, with an empty
seat between us. I was thinking, “Did they just create a fat section and put me and this poor girl in it? Have we been profiled?” And I’m tweeting up a storm when I see a flight attendant come over and ask this girl to follow her. They were gone for three minutes, and when the girl returned, she ordered a very stiff drink.