We at the N.T.A.B. would like to thank and congratulate all of the newcomers and make a point of especially thanking the paid subscribers who have paid forward on podcast content. Suffice to say, things are quiet in the recording booth thanks to extended field maneuvers (see below) but I want to reassure everyone that plans will resume when I return.
Field Reports Have Been Filed
The Administrator and the Director of Bunker Ops are taking some time for an International Cultural Exchange Program by touring Greece. I have to confess, I’m a little let down. We’ve been here for five days and I’ve not seen a single harpy, minotaur, or gorgon. I’m beginning to think that the movies of Ray Harryhausen might not have been straight with me.
Despite these crushing letdowns, we have nevertheless managed to find other things to look at. In fact, the Administrator has been filing daily reports from the field since the beginning of the trip. You can read them all and see the photos he’s uploaded on the blog, located at This Link Right Here. There may be another archive for the full photographic experience later.
In Other News...
Over the years, I’ve been acutely aware that there is an inherent bias towards overweight people in the airline industry, and I ping-pong back and forth on whether that’s simply “Tough Love social pressure" or if it’s outright discrimination. I mean, obese people have their own clothes stores now, and there are big and tall options for furniture, housewares and other accessories, not to mention a number of pieces of specialized equipment designed for folks with limited mobility.
But not on airplanes. Oh, if you want to sit in a normal-sized (for you, anyway) seat, you can always upgrade to First Class, an option I just know everyone won’t hesitate to do, because it’s only money anyway, right? Seat belts are designed to accommodate a certain sized waist, and if you don’t fit that parameter, you have to ask for one of those seat belt extensions. They will bring it to you. And while making the chairs smaller in a commercial aircraft certainly helps offset the cost by letting more people get on the plane at one time, I have to ask? Which people? 17th century Italians? Anyone over 5’5” and 165 lbs is going to feel trapped by a design aesthetic that doesn't seem to match with anyone's reality. And how is it that every big guy from here to Anaheim always, inevitably, gets booked into the middle chair?
I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of it. But in the absence of someone from United Airlines breaking it down for me, I’m going to assume they are out to get us. Or, at least, trying to shame us into putting down the Twinkie, and how’s that been working out for everyone, anyway? People are still overweight and still complaining about every single airline in existence, with good reason.
I got pretty good at T.W.O, or Traveling While Obese. I’m not proud of that, but there it is. I made a point of quietly asking for the seat belt extension as I boarded the plane so that I wouldn’t have to ask in front of a bunch of strangers. I didn’t eat or drink during the flight, so I wouldn’t have to use the bathroom (a challenge for height-weight proportionate people under optimal conditions; nearly impossible for me at my maximum size). I’d always pre-check, and request an exit row, aisle seat, whenever possible.
This was, of course, until I got too big for even that. My leisure travel dropped off precipitously, except for places that I could drive to. And then, driving became a problem. I couldn’t go more than about an hour and a half before I had to get out, stretch my legs, massage my calves, get the blood flowing again. The panniculitis was forcing my legs apart, putting a strain on my hip sockets that made it difficult to walk or even stand for longer than, say, ten or fifteen minutes. Driving for any distance was excruciating.
Hotels were awful. I was sleeping in a chair at home, to keep my head up, to keep air flowing so I didn’t cut off my own oxygen supply and choke myself awake. I’d made a functional nest for myself at the house, but in a hotel room? They assumed their bed and a couple of pillows was enough. If there was an office chair in the hotel room, I’d nap as best as I could in that; I eventually figured out how to rock back in the chair, putting my feet on the edge of the bed, and making an impromptu “Zero Gravity” configuration. I mean, it didn’t work great, but I could usually get a couple of hours of fitful sleep in that, and it kept me from being a real basket case. If you saw me at any conventions from 2013 to 2018, then you saw me silently struggling to stay awake, feel comfortable, and otherwise just maintain a semblance of normalcy for myself.
My experiences are not unique, or exceptional; on the contrary, anyone considered obese by society that has traveled for business or pleasure has had to deal with some, if not all, of the above problems.
I told you that to tell you this: this Greek vacation was my first real trip, real vacation, in ten years and I was worried. I’d been working on getting my surgery scheduled so I could go to Greece without fretting about mobility and all of the other stuff that was an impediment to living my life. But that wasn’t able to happen, and so, onto the plane I went, in my current condition, looking like day 11 of a twelve days of Christmas candle.
The trip was full of triumphs, both little and big. The little triumphs were just that: I still needed a seat belt extender. But while I was waiting for it to show up, I found that I could buckle my seat belt over my waist, under the ribs, and while that was both uncomfortable and useless all at once, the fact that I could do it at all was huge for me.
I still had a lot of the problems I’d always had, but there was now a ticking clock on them. In two months’ time, this was going to suddenly go away. Like sitting comfortably in a hotel restaurant chair, for example. There’s not a single comfortable chair in Europe for me, thanks to my formerly tumescent scrotum and the overall state of my undercarriage at the moment.
The next time I get on a plane, I will be able to sit in the middle seat and be only as uncomfortable as everyone else on the plane. I can’t wait.
Walking the Acropolis and Delphi
The real triumph this trip was putting my work-in-progress body to the test with a serious hike for someone like myself, up the Acropolis and the following day, up the mountainside to the theater at the Oracle at Delphi. These are, it should be noted, not a problem for physically fit people and a bit of a challenge for everyone else. For very overweight people, these climbs would be considered dangerous, and that’s being charitable.
Uneven ground, slick marble, large rocks, steep steps, curving ramps and inclines, and precious few handholds to steady yourself. There is no way—NO WAY—I’d have been able to make these treks in 2018, 2019, or 2020. Even most of 2021. I just wasn’t there, not in strength, endurance, and especially in weight.
Looking at these climbs from the ground, I was very nervous. Worried about balance, about tripping, about just doing the work. I didn’t want to hold the group back. Thankfully, the guide told me, “Just go as far as you can, and then you can come back down. Don’t worry about it.” It wasn’t much encouragement, but at least I had permission to bow out if it got to be too much.
Then a funny thing happened. I found that, as I started the climb, I could keep at it. It was slow going, and I didn’t scamper up the steps like the teenagers in the group. I had to stop several times and catch my breath, or stretch my calves. But I managed to get all the way up to the top, on my own.
And what’s more, I did it again the next day at Delphi. That was a harder climb; not as tall, but just as steep, and the steps used to ascend would have challenged a mountain goat. Some of them were nearly two feet tall, really slabs more than stairs. And oh, yeah, my legs were on fire, after the workout they got at the Acropolis the day before. But I was not going to throw in the towel. Not after all of this.
You look back on things like this, and you don’t quite know how you got there. That’s why I made a point of noticing the little changes along the way. And, even with the little changes rolling around in my head, I was still amazed and really emotional about being able to do two things I never thought I’d be able to do. It was a metamorphic experience for me. I’ll never forget this moment. And now I want more of them.
May the Fourth can’t get here soon enough.
I am continually impressed by how inspirational your reports are.
I'm just catching up on all your Greek fragments - I'm so happy you get to be there! It's extraordinary... to think this is the cradle of western civilisation, myth, all of that... it's an ambition of mine to go there someday. And oddly it didn't start to feel like a possibility until I was in hospital on TPN years back - I was looking at a friend's holiday photos and it clicked for me that this might be Difficult but not Impossible. Of course nowadays, post-TPN, it'd be considerably less difficult, so when we are further out from Covid that will need some thought perhaps.
And what you're experiencing is 100% discrimination. It's ableism. And one of the reasons it's possible is that in the air is one place where disability rights legislation does not apply - they're allowed to do all kinds of shit that an establishment on the ground would... well, let's be honest, it might happen, but if you had the money and the intestinal fortitude to attempt legal action, you would at least be able to challenge it. This has been a bugbear of disabled activists for a long, long time unfortunately.