I have just spent a total of 10 hours either in the air or in airports, and have also had occasion to go to a shopping mall for shoes and DVDs. From these experiences come a variety of observations.
I am a very privileged man. The amount and character of my education is strikingly different. This is apparent to me the more I interact with people. Most of the time I interact only with socio-educational peers, with other being mainly patients. In an airport or a shopping mall the entire cross section of America that can afford these activities is represented.
I am no longer a thin man. Between overactive fork reflex and substantial exercise I really no longer look like I did thirty years ago. My BMI is just over 35. I am obese. But I am nothing, nothing, compared to a remarkable proportion of the flying public and an even larger (so to speak) proportion of mall shoppers. My first flights were on older MD-88s, with seat belt sizing from 25 years ago. I could buckle it, but with only about 3 inches to spare. On my return flights new, 'adjusted' sizing of seat belts had been done, and I had 8 inches of slack. My waist is a 42, something of which I am ashamed. I would have said who needs a 50 inch seatbelt. Until I saw my flying companions. At the mall it is even more striking.
I wore American undress clothing- jeans, slip-on shoes, although leather, and a pull-over top. The dress of many of my flying partners was revolting. I would not show up to a picnic dressed as they were, let alone a location where I am in close proximity to other people. I realize we all have axillary hair, and women have breasts, but I do not need to see these things as a part of my in-flight entertainment. Also, as BMIs get really obnoxious, these things are not entertaining. They are grotesque, their exposure not a part of allurement but of inevitability, a situation where size becomes revolting. Hint- if you require a DD bra, or a XL or larger shirt, please wear sleeves. Your arm hole s are a window into the obscene and repellant.
Despite our collective size, there is an opportunity to eat at every turn. Literally. You cannot get down to your gate without passing at least three places to get bagels/pizza/sodas/sandwiches/Chinese/barbecue. In the mall flabby, ill-dressed people are in line to eat more food. And it is all non-food food. Greasy, salty, processed, preserved, pre-cooked. And in gargantuan portions. Pretzels to feed four, heaps of rice, or beans, or rice and beans, or whatever.
Please, stop. I realize I am a sinner, a failure in maintaining my ideal body weight and conditioning. But I am not like this. What I saw was just bad. Bad behavior. bad choices. Bad food. Bad everything.
Our airlines present different insanities. We are nominally allowed to check one small bag and one personal item that will fit under the seat in front of us. Even Prohibition wasn't broken as often as this rule. People waltzed on with an obviously too big bag, a huge 'purse' the size of a carry-on and a laptop. Not that any airline personnel stopped them. Delta also has what it calls the 'sky priority lane' for boarding. This is directly next to the ordinary lane. I couldn't see a difference, and since actual boarding is slowed by dinosaur sized people stuffing illicit bags and themselves into the plane there is a line at the aircraft door no matter what priority boarding lane you choose.
And buying a coach seat is no longer enough. You can purchase, upgrade, to economy preferred or economy comfort. These seats are for medallion members, medallion plus, medallion sliver and platinum and apparently every other type of person except me. Except that I ended up in an exit row twice, with first class level leg room. Whatever. This is ridiculous.
The TSA is a joke. We now have the pre-boarding partial strip tease, in which we take off our belts, shoes and jewelry to be x-rayed, all on account of the shoe bomber. How clever the TSA is. Exactly how likely is it, with a well -publicized policy of screening shoes, that another bomber will put plastique in his shoes? Thank God we didn't have the underwear bomber, or the underwire bra bomber. Exactly how far are we going to go with this charade before we start targeting our searches. Yes of course it's profiling. It is when we assign more police to high crime neighborhoods, too. Can you imagine having the police presence in a peaceful, affluent suburb that you have in an inner city project? Neither can I.
A last comment on the entire mall/airport experience. Almost everything I saw for sale in the mall was made in China or a third world location. Americans are flocking to buy cheap goods made overseas while our own citizens look for work. All while we export our debt to the same producer countries in order to finance social and military programs we can't afford. Did anyone, anyone at all, think about putting our nation on a diet too? If we want prosperity we need to make things for ourselves and be productive enough, and pay enough taxes, to pay for the governmental services we want, or reduce the size of government.
Until we do that we collectively behave as we apparently do individually- gorging on things that are bad for us and ignoring the consequences for our future.
I wish I had a private plane, and I almost never go into a mall, and I'm delighted with that.
Ted
I am a very privileged man. The amount and character of my education is strikingly different. This is apparent to me the more I interact with people. Most of the time I interact only with socio-educational peers, with other being mainly patients. In an airport or a shopping mall the entire cross section of America that can afford these activities is represented.
I am no longer a thin man. Between overactive fork reflex and substantial exercise I really no longer look like I did thirty years ago. My BMI is just over 35. I am obese. But I am nothing, nothing, compared to a remarkable proportion of the flying public and an even larger (so to speak) proportion of mall shoppers. My first flights were on older MD-88s, with seat belt sizing from 25 years ago. I could buckle it, but with only about 3 inches to spare. On my return flights new, 'adjusted' sizing of seat belts had been done, and I had 8 inches of slack. My waist is a 42, something of which I am ashamed. I would have said who needs a 50 inch seatbelt. Until I saw my flying companions. At the mall it is even more striking.
I wore American undress clothing- jeans, slip-on shoes, although leather, and a pull-over top. The dress of many of my flying partners was revolting. I would not show up to a picnic dressed as they were, let alone a location where I am in close proximity to other people. I realize we all have axillary hair, and women have breasts, but I do not need to see these things as a part of my in-flight entertainment. Also, as BMIs get really obnoxious, these things are not entertaining. They are grotesque, their exposure not a part of allurement but of inevitability, a situation where size becomes revolting. Hint- if you require a DD bra, or a XL or larger shirt, please wear sleeves. Your arm hole s are a window into the obscene and repellant.
Despite our collective size, there is an opportunity to eat at every turn. Literally. You cannot get down to your gate without passing at least three places to get bagels/pizza/sodas/sandwiches/Chinese/barbecue. In the mall flabby, ill-dressed people are in line to eat more food. And it is all non-food food. Greasy, salty, processed, preserved, pre-cooked. And in gargantuan portions. Pretzels to feed four, heaps of rice, or beans, or rice and beans, or whatever.
Please, stop. I realize I am a sinner, a failure in maintaining my ideal body weight and conditioning. But I am not like this. What I saw was just bad. Bad behavior. bad choices. Bad food. Bad everything.
Our airlines present different insanities. We are nominally allowed to check one small bag and one personal item that will fit under the seat in front of us. Even Prohibition wasn't broken as often as this rule. People waltzed on with an obviously too big bag, a huge 'purse' the size of a carry-on and a laptop. Not that any airline personnel stopped them. Delta also has what it calls the 'sky priority lane' for boarding. This is directly next to the ordinary lane. I couldn't see a difference, and since actual boarding is slowed by dinosaur sized people stuffing illicit bags and themselves into the plane there is a line at the aircraft door no matter what priority boarding lane you choose.
And buying a coach seat is no longer enough. You can purchase, upgrade, to economy preferred or economy comfort. These seats are for medallion members, medallion plus, medallion sliver and platinum and apparently every other type of person except me. Except that I ended up in an exit row twice, with first class level leg room. Whatever. This is ridiculous.
The TSA is a joke. We now have the pre-boarding partial strip tease, in which we take off our belts, shoes and jewelry to be x-rayed, all on account of the shoe bomber. How clever the TSA is. Exactly how likely is it, with a well -publicized policy of screening shoes, that another bomber will put plastique in his shoes? Thank God we didn't have the underwear bomber, or the underwire bra bomber. Exactly how far are we going to go with this charade before we start targeting our searches. Yes of course it's profiling. It is when we assign more police to high crime neighborhoods, too. Can you imagine having the police presence in a peaceful, affluent suburb that you have in an inner city project? Neither can I.
A last comment on the entire mall/airport experience. Almost everything I saw for sale in the mall was made in China or a third world location. Americans are flocking to buy cheap goods made overseas while our own citizens look for work. All while we export our debt to the same producer countries in order to finance social and military programs we can't afford. Did anyone, anyone at all, think about putting our nation on a diet too? If we want prosperity we need to make things for ourselves and be productive enough, and pay enough taxes, to pay for the governmental services we want, or reduce the size of government.
Until we do that we collectively behave as we apparently do individually- gorging on things that are bad for us and ignoring the consequences for our future.
I wish I had a private plane, and I almost never go into a mall, and I'm delighted with that.
Ted
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