I Blame Those Evil Towel Conglomerates
From The Independent, a new moral crisis:
A plus-size content creator and traveller who said seatbelts on planes cause “emotional damage” is now sharing tips on how to avoid the trauma.
It occurs to me that the thing causing the annoyance – sorry, emotional damage – is not in fact the seatbelt, or asking for an extender. If, say, a person of average proportions found that all plane seatbelts had suddenly been reduced in size by 38%, this might well be irritating, and somewhat surreal, but it would not, I think, be a likely cause of similar “emotional damage,” let alone psychological trauma.
Likewise, if you’re rendered incensed by the fact that a plus-sized bath towel is still insufficiently commodious, then the cause of any sorrow and agitation probably isn’t the towel, but rather what you’re trying to fit in it. However, it seems that certain obvious realities must not be acknowledged – and so we get performative indignation about how oppressive towels are.
Update, via the comments:
Regarding airborne stowing dramas, readers may recall the delightful and ladylike Lindy West, a “fat activist” whose “work focuses on pop culture, social justice and body image.” In a tearful tale shared in Jezebel, Ms West insisted that she should always be accommodated, regardless of practicality and inconvenience, as if her own choice to be, and remain, notably overweight could have no bearing on the issue. While struggling to squeeze into her plane seat, Ms West decided to pick a loud verbal fight with an adjacent male passenger, and then amused herself by deliberately knocking him with her luggage as he tried to sleep. She then complained, seemingly without irony, that “nobody wants to sit next to a fat person on a plane.”
When not writing about herself for Jezebel and the Guardian, or testing the endurance of plane seats and fellow passengers, and insisting that her difficulties fitting into seats and other spaces are nothing whatsoever to do with her choices, Ms West makes videos of herself eating biscuits and junk food.
It seems to me there are three broad approaches to being notably fat[…] The second is to remain fat and get on with your life, and deal with the practicalities of fatness as a grown-up might.
That. I have a rather rotund disposition. I am not as rotund as I was, thanks to walking more and eating less over the last year or so, but I still have a long way to go to shift the accumulated consequences of a half-decade of gastronomic overindulgence. But not once in that time did I ever think that I should go through life making excuses, or worse, excessive and unreasonable demands on other people. Ultimately, I made myself fat – I’m responsible for my size and its consequences, not society, and I just need to deal with it. Oh, I’ve frequently been apologetically self-deprecating about my weight when necessary, but that’s because I think a polite, humorous acknowledgment generally goes down better than being a whiny, narcissistic, and above all demanding git.
[ Fetches stool with extra, third leg. ]
Haha.
However, the teenagers had yet to master the washing machine or vacuum cleaner, or the technical subtleties of doing the washing-up.
Heh. With 4 daughters I learned fast to avoid the morning clothing fights on why this or that wasn’t washed by resigning from doing any of my daughters’ laundry as soon as they were tall enough to reach the knobs on the washer & dryer. A couple of lessons on laundry soap and how to fold and I was DONE.
Mean mother that I was, they had regular chores and helped in the kitchen, too. And as soon as the eldest had her driver’s license, I handed over the market list and enough cash and had her take #2 with her and they did the grocery shopping. I had them shopping for their own back-to-school clothes on a budget, and by themselves, as soon as they hit jr. high.
Amazing how much more competent adults they’ve become.
A couple of lessons on laundry soap and how to fold and I was DONE.
[ Passes Bra Of Wisdom. ]
There’s a strong correlation with “fussy eater” and “indulged their entire childhood”,
I have witnessed on numerous occasions, at schools where I consulted, mothers bringing a bag of fresh-cooked McDonalds ‘health food’ to the front office of said schools for their precious children to eat at lunch time.
Jim
I have hired neighbor boys to do yard work and several times I had to teach them to rake or pull weeds. They were 16 or 17. Unreal.
Weight: of all the things that are for sure your own fault, weight is up at the top. No one force fed you. No one stopped you from going for a walk. If you don’t care, ok, but don’t blame “society”.
I’m looking particularly svelte tonight, in case you were wondering.
I have no problem with removing aircraft seatbelts for certain cargo, er “passengers” so long as they are relegated to their own part of the plane in case they become projectiles in the event of sudden deceleration or turbulence. Or perhaps they could have belts placed around their necks instead.
I’m still appalled that certain extra-large people are not required to purchase multiple adjacent seats so that they do not intrude upon their fellow passengers.
My mind boggles. I am 38″ in circumference at my widest point (shoulders). I sometimes look at oversized humans and calculate how many of me would fit into them.
The thing about becoming so large is that it doesn’t really take that many calories to sustain. Activity slows to accommodate the size, and fat doesn’t burn many calories. I suspect that the muscle mass of our Tormented-by-Towels heroine is only moderately larger than mine.
On a plane I had a 6ft 10in man next to me. He was not fat. To avoid being in my space, he leaned his forehead against the seat in front and put his arms in on his knees. Most considerate guy I ever saw.
Lady theo: you are right. Fat takes up twice the volume as muscle for the same weight. I saw a study years ago that found that slim people constantly move–shifting, twitching, looking around. Perhaps their body knows to burn off the extra calories. Very large people do not move much which makes it kind of a trap.
I don’t know if it’s an upbringing or innate thing, but our 5 year old has always been very eager to help out around (and outside) the house. She berates me if I do a load of laundry in the evening without letting her put in the clothes and soap and push the buttons. She’s been (over)eagerly helping us break in the garden at our new house. For more than a year, she has been helping load and unload the dishwasher.
Sure, she likes to goof off and color, or play Minecraft with her mom, too, but I can’t imagine her being totally passive towards the chores. Of course, even if she had been so inclined, we wouldn’t have abandoned her to those impulses.
I’m curious to see how her baby sister turns out.
Mean mother that I was, they had regular chores and helped in the kitchen, too.
You monstress.
I’m still appalled that certain extra-large people are not required to purchase multiple adjacent seats so that they do not intrude upon their fellow passengers.
As an extra-large person I would gladly pay for an extra seat if such an option were available, and I’m merely tall and broad. I did discover the Magic Trick though: upon boarding, inform the gate stewardess that you are “willing and able to assist in the event of an emergency, and are physically capable of removing and stowing the emergency exit door”. They put you in the emergency aisle, with an extra 12″ of leg room.
I don’t know if it’s an upbringing or innate thing, but our 5 year old has always been very eager to help out
Children mimic. It’s what they do. Parents with children who don’t want to ape what mommy or daddy are doing are parents who have, consciously or otherwise, discouraged their children from doing so. The particularly nasty wife of a friend of mine once took a birdhouse painting project away from her four-year-old and finished it herself because the four-year-old wasn’t doing a very good job of it.
ccscientist: “I have hired neighbor boys to do yard work and several times I had to teach them to rake or pull weeds. They were 16 or 17.”
My wife, 70 years old and petite, though very fit [ex-marathon runner] has occasionally hired the neighbouring lads of about 13 and 15 to help rake up as part of summer fire prevention around the house. Both lads needed initial coaching on the necessary skills and neither lasted more than an hour any time they were employed before pleading exhaustion. I believe they spend most of the time playing computer games and are rarely seen out-of-doors though they live on a three acre rural property. A couple of years ago I offered to help their parents after a number of large trees came down in a storm. I used my large tractor, chainsaw and hydraulic wood splitter, but made it clear that I would not do so unless both boys were also involved picking up and stacking split wood. I was damned if I was going to offer my [free] labour and use my machinery while the two indolent lads played computer games inside. Had I not demanded their involvement I know they would have been allowed to just go on playing their games by their PW parents.
Jim
“I don’t know if it’s an upbringing or innate thing, but our 5 year old has always been very eager to help out around (and outside) the house.”
You do understand that she’s planning on doing away with you as soon as she hits self-sufficiency, don’t you?
Keep some secrets. Make her need you. It’s your only chance.
On a plane I had a 6ft 10in man next to me. He was not fat. To avoid being in my space, he leaned his forehead against the seat in front and put his arms in on his knees. Most considerate guy I ever saw.
See, it’s stuff like this. Once I stopped growing, vertically anyway, at 17 or so I grew out of the awkwardness (NPI) and mostly forgot about it until, as I said, I read the article about the UF center and some things came back to me. The stumbling, the “spaz” ridicule and such that came from limbs growing faster than a mind can keep up with. Literal growing pains (mine were probably no worse than most moderately tall guys) during growth spurts. The self-conscious awareness of everyone looking at you, especially if you stumble or such. You can’t really hide. This 6′ 10″ guy probably had that in spades and if he didn’t grow up at least moderately athletic there’s no reward to balance that pain out. Yet people probably treat him like he’s self centered or such because of his self conscious instincts to the degree that he had become the most considerate guy you’d ever met. I’ve worked with a few guys who were a bit taller than me and, given my software/engineering profession, most of them were not much into athletics at all. I could see how such a thing had affected their personalities especially as we tech types also are more introverted.
I did discover the Magic Trick though: upon boarding, inform the gate stewardess that you are “willing and able to assist in the event of an emergency, and are physically capable of removing and stowing the emergency exit door”. They put you in the emergency aisle, with an extra 12″ of leg room.
I usually didn’t fly more often than once or twice a year. I haven’t flown anywhere since early 2018 or so. But I had only moderate success at this trick, and was especially not successful when changing planes. The last few years before 2018 I noticed the seats were individually priced such that the bulkhead and exit rows were more expensive. Depends on the airline I suppose.
[ Fetches stool with extra, third leg. ]
You mean most of your stools only have 2 legs? Maybe that’s why I keep falling over. I thought it was the alcohol.
Children mimic. It’s what they do.
Not enough parents realize that and act accordingly. If you want your kids to be physically fit then you yourself should routinely do fitness-related things. If you want your kids to read, then you should read and have books around. And if you want your kids to not be couch potatoes, then you should not spend hours and hours watching TV or playing video games. And so on.
Children mimic. It’s what they do.
I’ve always liked ‘Monkey see, monkey do!’ though I suppose some self-righteous twit would take offence nowadays.
Jim
More on ‘Children mimic’
Over many years I received referrals from parents asking for help in managing girls or boys [usually developmentally delayed/different in some way] who were bashing up their siblings in the family home. It is common for this behaviour to escalate as such children develop through puberty, mothers get older and more fatigued and the children become bigger and stronger than their mothers so they are also bashed. In every case I found that an aggressive father and an occasional angry mother used corporal punishment to ‘manage’ the aggressive child from very young. Getting such parents to cease bashing their ‘naughty’ children [and understand ‘monkey see, monkey do’] is extremely difficult. A standard defence was ‘My father used to teach me my manners by caning or strapping me; it didn’t hurt me and it won’t hurt my child’. It can get to the point that siblings of such violent children start to carry weapons such as cut-down broom handles to defend themselves and some mothers, if father is not present to protect them, have to lock themselves in their bedrooms for their own safety. In one case and in spite of my pleading that she not spank her 6 year old child with a large wooden spoon but follow the behaviour program that was successful at the mainstream school, one mother continued bashing her daughter. By the time the mother was 45 and her daughter a strapping 17 year old, the tables were turned and the situation was beyond salvage.
What goes around, comes around.
Jim
certain cargo, er “passengers”
Flightdeck crews have been known to refer to passengers as “self-loading cargo”.
But I had only moderate success at this trick
I’m given to understand that FAA rules dictate that you may not sit in the emergency row unless you are ready, willing and able to assist in the event of an emergency, which practically means being able to detach the emergency door and chuck it over the wing of the plane or shove it under the seat so people can get out. Perhaps this has changed? I know I’ve seen people move out of the emergency row because they didn’t want the responsibility.
In every case I found that an aggressive father and an occasional angry mother used corporal punishment to ‘manage’ the aggressive child from very young.
There are indeed limits on the effectiveness of the application of corporal punishment. However the logic applied here is akin to the “marijuana is a gateway drug to heroine” or similar. The near total abandonment of corporal punishment is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Most of the kids that I grew up with who had some form of CP applied turned out fine. Better than most even. However I did not know many (or any that I knew at the time) whose parents (usually father) went ape-shit crazy on the kids. I did learn later on/recently about a couple of high school acquaintances/teammates whose fathers were moderately violent alcoholics. Though the two I’m thinking of right now turned out ok themselves. Granted there were other issues there but they are more successful than most. The several of the kids whose parents were more laissez faire or relied on logic and reason were trouble. The only ones that weren’t were mostly girls or the more studious or even slightly effeminate or very mild mannered boys. A few of those latter failed to launch. While I don’t doubt your observation I suspect the stress and the frustration dealing with troubled children, especially in past generations, had much to do with the resort to more extreme corporal punishment.
One thing though… I think we fail to grasp how dramatically society has changed in just 150-200 years. In the past, families were much, much larger on average and there were a lot of failures to launch, old maids, troubled souls who died young due to one form of violence or another, etc. Just/mostly since the dawn of the 20th century did families start to get smaller with more pressure on the fewer children to do much better.
I know I’ve seen people move out of the emergency row because they didn’t want the responsibility.
I do recall this in earlier days and once after seating I was able to procure such a seat after the stewardess kind of intimidated a small person into moving. But I don’t recall it happening recently. Probably not since 9/11, though I could be wrong. I don’t recall exactly how long ago the seat selection at purchase started. But like I said, it’s been about four years since I’ve flown.
Speaking of the airborne and hefty, let’s not forget the charming Lindy West.
She then complained, seemingly without irony, that “nobody wants to sit next to a fat person on a plane.”
She sounds nice.
You do understand that she’s planning on doing away with you
Hence the (over)eager interest in the garden – that’s where the bodies will be buried.
She sounds nice.
Surliness, hangovers, and gluttony are things of which Ms West likes to publicly boast, along with her fits of passive-aggressive and outright aggressive behaviour, while simultaneously invoking victimhood. Which probably tells us something about who she is. Again, these things – “fat activism” in particular – seem to attract a remarkable concentration of shitty people.
Worse flight I ever took I was in a centre seat between two fat boys. Ok, no arm rests, but all three of us were wearing short sleeved shirts and I was folding myself up to avoid skin contact. I’ve never worn a short sleeved shirt on a plane since.
Somewhat related.
Also this.
What if . . . places like Walmart and other grocery outlets got rid of the mechanized mobility scooters, thus forcing the people who use them to either walk, order online, or starve?
I am at the tail end of the Boomer generation and I have stopped being surprised at the number of my like-aged colleagues who have just given up. By that, I mean, whether it is their health or the willingness to learn a new technology, they just have abdicated personal responsibility. It came to a head where I was at a function where some woman tee-hee-hee’d that she just was “too old to learn,” so I took her two hands into mine and solemnly told her, “Then it is your time to die.”
Unfortunately, this mindset of “some[one/thing] will take care of it” has been assumed by subsequent generations.
Anti-fat is also anti-black, according to “gi gi” (she/they) who claims her father was so fat he had to go to the zoo to get an MRI.
This is, of course, a load of codswallop as MRIs cannot be made infinitely huge.
Human limits are around 500 lbs for the table and 24 or so inches width. These people not only whine but lie, open MRI machines can accommodate the Zeppelinoid.
Not really related…
World to end: transgenders hardest hit:
https://twitter.com/aewerner/status/1496703650022010886
Ephemera…. compiled.
[ Slumps across keyboard, spent but heroic. ]
[ Slumps across keyboard, spent but heroic. ]
Quick, somebody give David a fortifying dish of hump fat!
Flightdeck crews have been known to refer to passengers as “self-loading cargo”.
I was once on a marketing course, where I was informed that British Rail (internally, at least) referred to passengers as Human Freight.
Incidentally on the same course I learned that a once well-known menswear retailer in the UK which sold tweed jackets, flat caps, striped ties and waistcoats to reasonably well-off males had the bright idea of all the male staff actually wearing the clothes they sold, at work. Wonderful idea, the result of which was their staff left in droves to find other employment.
“A body-positivity activist has claimed that diet, exercise, and general promoting of healthy lifestyles are all examples of ‘conversation therapy’ for fat people.”
https://thepostmillennial.com/activist-says-diet-and-exercise-is-conversion-therapy-for-fat-people
?
“conversion therapy for fat people” ahahahahah right. People are forcing the fat to put the fork down…not
…transgenders hardest hit:
Unless those signs are actually Level 4 plates and they are where ever the front is, I really doubt they will either be the first hit or helping.
Urgent reminder about Ukraine. Glad to see that trans activists have their priorities straight.
“Straight.” ?
“self-loading cargo”
A friend of mine went on one of those “windjammer” type cruises a few years back, and afterwards claimed that this made him “a sailor like Squid!” I may have rolled my eyes a bit too obviously, as he asked me what the problem was.
“Did you haul on a halyard to raise the sails?”
No.
“Did you trim the sails when the weather changed?”
No.
“Did you stand at the helm and steer a steady course?”
No.
“Did you at any time tie a bowline or a sheet hitch, check the bilge, scrub the deck, or wish you had a pair of gloves to protect the tender skin on your hands from getting damaged?”
No.
“Then my dear Kristopher, I’m afraid you’re not a sailor — you’re cargo.”
Fortunately he’s a really good sport and we all had a good laugh.
I’ll see your “transgenders”, and raise you…
tie a bowline
Ah, but can you tie a bowline using only one hand and blindfolded? I was told this ability could very well come in handy one day if say you fell down a well, broke one arm and were blinded somehow in the process. Funny they never mentioned a boat.
whether it is their health or the willingness to learn a new technology
In all fairness, neuroplasticity declines dramatically by one’s late 20s. There’s something in tech called (tongue in cheek) “Stoll‘s Syndrome” where an aging tech nerd, not realizing this basic fact of neuropsychiatry, subconsciously rejects a new technology because he can’t absorb it as quickly or easily as he’s used to.
I am keenly aware that I can’t learn and retain as quickly as when I was younger, so I have to work harder at it these days. Fortunately the core tenets of software engineering haven’t changed much.
I’m afraid you’re not a sailor — you’re cargo
I’m reminded of this scene from What About Bob?
Glad to see that trans activists have their priorities straight.
Cossax.
Daniel: given that I started out with punch cards and Fortran IV, I feel good that I have kept up as well as I have (as a person who writes code to compute things, not as a software engineer). I am happy to admit that learning another language (say Python) is way too much work.
Ukraine–funny how twisted people’s priorities are. How would black lives mattering in the US help the people of Ukraine? Are we going to not lend assistance ever to anyone around the world until the US is perfect? Sure, good plan.
Ukraine: they agreed to give up nukes if the West would protect them from Russia. Guess they didn’t pinky swear.