I Feel your Pain Dude!

So, I was going to write about the Olympics today. I was going to write about how much my mom loved everything about them and how she’d be first in line as a proud Canadian cheering all of our athletes on. However, there’s another issue nagging at my brain today. One that I can’t stop thinking about so, I’ve decided to get up on my soapbox for a little bit.

About a year ago, I had to travel for work. I had to spend a couple of days in Montreal working with one of our customers. The whys and whatfors don’t really matter but this was a good opportunity for my career. The details were delicate and I needed to tread carefully but I have a history of establishing good relationships with customers and this was a chance to prove it. But, I couldn’t get excited about it. Instead, I became consumed with size requirements and passenger weight restrictions. Will I fit into the seats and seatbelts and if I do, will I be invading the dance space of someone else? I tried to research on the internet; I found seat sizes and seatbelt sizes. I then measured myself to make sure that I wasn’t going to have any problems. But I never did find anything on an actual weight restriction or limit where one would have to purchase another seat if their weight was over – just lots of stuff about being able to fit into the seat. My nerves were constantly on edge and the worry – my goodness all I did was silently worry, too embarrassed to confide in anyone. I was an absolute mess of nerves until that plane took off and to this day, I’m not sure I could have survived the humiliation of having to tell my boss that she needed to buy me another seat on that plane or of having the conversation with anyone to begin with. At the end of it all, I didn’t have anything to worry about. I fit into the seats and seatbelts with no problems and none of me ‘spilled’ over into the seats of other passengers.

Fast forward to this weekend and an incident involving a famous actor/director/writer and Southwest Airlines. Kevin Smith lived my worst fear. By his own admission, he sometimes reserves two seats when flying. Whether it’s for his own comfort or to avoid potential humiliation doesn’t matter. But on this particular day, he was catching a flight on standby (so he only had one seat for this flight) and was seated and belted comfortably meeting the requirements set forth by the airline. Let me repeat that – he met the requirements published by Southwest Airlines for overweight passengers. However, before the plane took off, he was informed that he needed to purchase a second seat and since the flight was full he had to get back up, gather his belongings and find a different one.

Southwest Airlines has issued a statement (I think only because Mr. Smith was ‘tweetin’ angry) that the cause of this incident was simply a communication breakdown. But I’m not sure that’s good enough. When did the rules of basic human decency stop applying to the plus size population? Because I gotta tell ya, stories like this happen every day – we’re only hearing about this one because it’s a celebrity. When did it become OK to ‘mooo’ at a fat person as you’re driving by? Or nudge your boyfriend in the line at the liquor store and utter ‘I don’t think I could live if I was that fat’? Or comment about a customers’ ‘fatness’ inside a plus size store? When did fat people stop having feelings because I still haven’t received that memo….

I don’t care what size you are but take a minute and put yourself in Kevin Smith’s shoes at that moment. Imagine your heart sinking into your gut and your cheeks burning up in embarrassment. Imagine the stares of the other un-fat airline employees and passengers as you are trying to pull yourself together. Imagine the painful lump in your throat as you’re trying to stop the tears, moving one foot in front of the other on that walk of shame to get off that plane as quickly as possible.

And if you don’t find that you can empathize with any of this, perhaps Southwest Airlines has a job opening for you.

(Questions or comments, feel free to email me at callaghan.katie@gmail.com)