Being Chuck

Ever heard of Murphy’s Law?

[Please note: This is a rhetorical question. I am assuming you have. However, if you have not, please feel free to check out Murphy's Law here.]

I don’t quite believe that Murphy’s Law (not all the time anyway), but this one (below) is proven.

Stroup’s Law:

When travelling alone, the size of the persons one is seated with is directly proportional to the size of the one.

Once again, this time on my return flight from Kansas City, MO (which was ridiculously cold by the way… the city, not the flight), I boarded the plane seeking out my seat. 21C. As I looked down the plane beyond the seemingly endless line of bodies attempting to stuff their oversized “carry-on” baggage into the undersized overhead compartment, I could see a man. He was sitting by himself, but he took up about one and a half airline seats.

[Please note: That is not an indictment or slam of said man. I, myself, take up more than my grossly oversized (yes, sarcasm) airline seat.]

And I immediately thought to myself:

Well, there’s row 21…

And of course, I was correct.

So I sat down and said, “Let’s pray this seat just happens to be open.”

He laughed.

…

As more and more people boarded the plane, I tried to avoid eye contact for fear of magically wishing/unwishing some other large person into the middle seat in our “three-person” row. But I couldn’t help myself.

As I raised my eyes through the river of people… I saw him. Another man, equally as large as the one currently on my left, looked at his boarding pass, then down the aisle at us, and rolled his eyes.

How does this happen? Does the airline have some weird IP mapper that also flags the weight and height of the person purchasing tickets? Is it some cruel joke by skinny little airline workers bent on shaming people who are bigger than them? Did they get picked on in high school or something?

…

It’s not very often that I spend time around one person who is of considerably more size than I. But it usually happens on planes.

So there we were. I’m sure it was quite the humorous sight. Three large men (of which I definitely weighed the least, and wasn’t the tallest) crammed into a space worthy of two smaller or even average-sized men.

And of course, the flight was packed full. There were no open seats for any of us to move to… to alleviate the amazing pressure caused when a great amount of mass is compressed into a container not built to hold it.

It may not be Murphy’s Law (the plane didn’t crash… it could have been worse), but Stroup’s Law was definitely in full effect once again.

Hahaha…this is soo true!!!

Comment by Amanda April 22, 2009 @ 21:30