In a tale of conflicting expectations, one woman faced the moral dilemma of choosing between societal norms and her right to personal comfort during a recent flight.
This story unfolds as she weighs up the pressure to be generous while remaining steadfast in her decision not to give the extra seat she had paid for to a child.
Let’s delve into her story and the moral debate that was sparked when she took to social media!
The 34-year-old Redditor, who calls herself “obese“, took to Reddit’s ‘Am I The A*****e’ thread to explain what happened.
In her post, she said that she was on a journey across the country to see her brother and his husband for Christmas last year.
She then wrote about the extra measure she had to take while traveling due to her size. “Because I’m fat, I booked an extra seat so everyone can be more comfortable,” she said. “I know it sucks having to pay for an extra seat but it is what it is. I know Southwest Airlines has this ‘customer of size’ policy but I’ve had some bad experiences with Southwest even before I was obese so I wasn’t doing that and it’s mostly my fault I even got fat.”
Ahead of her flight, the Redditor detailed that everything was going “smoothly” for her, including going through security right up to the moment when she boarded the plane. When she eventually sat down, however, the problems started.
“This woman comes to my row with a boy who appeared to be about a year old,” the Redditor wrote. “She told me to squeeze in to one seat so her son could sit in the other. She told me, not asked. I told her no and that I paid for this seat for the extra space.”
Evidently, the woman on the plane was not happy with the Redditor’s response, as she made “a big fuss over it, which got the flight attendant’s attention.” The woman then apparently told the flight attendant that the Redditor had stolen the seat from her son, at which point the Redditor produced her boarding passes, proving that she had, in fact, paid for an extra seat due to her size.
“The flight attendant asked me if I could try to squeeze in, but I said no, that I wanted the extra seat I paid for,” the Redditor wrote in her post. “The boy, who the mom said is 18 months old was supposed to sit in her lap so he could do just that. The flight attendant eventually told the mom to put her son in her lap. I got dirty looks and passive-aggressive remarks from her for the entire flight and I do feel a little bad because the boy looked hard to control.”
The Redditor then concludes her post by asking fellow internet users if she was the a*****e in the situation.
In the comments section, users weighed in on the situation, with most of them siding with the Redditor. “She’s wrong for not buying a seat for her son and assuming someone else would give up a seat they paid for. Odds are she was hoping there’d be extra seats on the flight so she didn’t have to pay and used the lap thing as a loophole,” commented one person.
Another simply added: “You paid for that seat. It’s yours… You might even get some miles or goodies for it.”
“Being fat isn’t a character flaw or a moral failing… If the mom wants an extra seat for her kids, she should have purchased one. She’s not entitled to a seat you purchased, and you don’t need to feel bad for her bad behavior,” a further Redditor chimed in.
One person also highlighted that many airlines require larger passengers to purchase two seats, so the flight attendant’s request for the Redditor to squeeze into one seat (despite paying for two) was, they felt, rather unfair.
What do you think of this situation? Let us know in the comments!
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