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.