Victim Ignored

I once got the last seat on a plane, between a fat man and a lady
with
a baby. It was the worst four hours of my life.

I love babies and do not discriminate against overweight people,
however, they both provoked hostilities I never knew I had.

I am seated in the middle seat of a three-seat section of the plane.
Seated to my right is a woman and her year and a half-old toddler. The
mother is talking baby talk to her son, while reading him a story. So,
for a solid hour, gibberish is assaulting my ears. When the story is
over, the son becomes restless, climbing all over her, his tiny
pitter-patter feet stepping on my thigh and scuffing my pants. The
mother tries to confine him, but this is no small task. Constant
movement keeps me from resting. I attempt to read the New York Times,
and as I do so, the little devil rips my newspaper to pieces. When the
mother scolds him, he proceeds to cry for another twenty minutes.
Loudly, turning red, a tantrum is in progress.

A man seated to my left is at least 250 pounds. His legs are
practically covering my skinny little body. I have to keep my elbows
close to my waist in order not to be rubbing skin with him. He is
sympathetic about the noisy baby besides me. He is also sweating, and
smelling bad. He is a talker. By the end of my trip, I knew every
unsuccessful attempt he has ever made in his life to lose weight.
Trying to give him a subliminal message, I kept putting my nose in my
mutilated newspaper. This message of hope to disinterest him in my
being. He did not get this message. Yak, yak, yak, and more blah, blah,
blah.

I have paid $400.00 for my ticket, one hundred dollars an hour to be
crushed, sweated on, and forced to listen to Mother Goose and Humpty
Dumpty; How is the airline protecting ME from THESE terrorists?