Ronald Young Jr.
speaker
945 appearances
13 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 24 Aug
Ronald Young Jr.’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 10 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.
Appearances
As the plane began to fill up, the flight attendants announced that people would need to move their bags from the middle seat. Bridget could no longer feign a search inside her purse.
It looked like Bridget had succeeded. No one else was boarding, and she had an empty middle seat between her and her neighbor on the aisle.
Bridget is describing one of the best feelings ever, and I am not exaggerating. One day I was headed out on vacation with friends who sat in a different row in between strangers, and somehow I got a seat in the empty row. My friend Travis looked at me and said, you just won the lottery. For me, it was even better than flying first class because I didn't have to pay more for the experience.
But also, as a fat person, having an empty seat next to you on a flight means more than just comfort. It means less anxiety and less physical stress on your body.
This experience of rigor mortising your muscles is very familiar for me. It's something I've done on many flights. Unlike Bridget, I prefer an aisle seat with a movable armrest because I'm not just fat, I have broad shoulders. So even if my stomach were smaller, I'd still be touching my neighbor.
Sitting in the aisle allows me to lean slightly into the aisle and away from the person I'm sitting next to. But Bridget didn't have to worry about any of these contortions. She was settling in for what should have been an easy flight.
Now mind you, Bridget was sitting at a window seat two rows away from the bathroom at the back of the plane. Her getting off would require her seatmate getting up to let her out, then a long walk from the back of the plane to the front of the plane with everyone looking, wondering, and judging. as she walked by.
Bridget followed the gate agent to the desk where they were joined by another gate agent, a man.
Bridget had already been on the plane, already settled in her seat, but then removed from the plane and humiliated because she was fat. Nobody would have blamed her if she decided not to get back on. But she did. The gate attendant officially reserved the seat next to Bridget as per the Southwest customer of size policy and then walked her back down the jet bridge and onto the plane.
Deadheading is the term used when a flight attendant or pilot travels as a passenger on a flight to another location to work on a subsequent flight.
We don't know exactly why the flight attendant wanted Bridget to reserve the seat next to her as per the customer of size policy, but based on this interaction with the gate agent, my speculation is that the flight attendant who was deadheading didn't want to sit next to Bridget. But since that was the only available cabin seat on the flight, that's where they would have to sit.
But if that seat were taken, then they would be able to sit in one of the available jump seats away from the main cabin. We don't know this for sure because Southwest never responded to Bridget's complaint that she would file later. Nevertheless, the gate agent wanted to confirm that after all this trouble, nobody would be sitting next to Bridget.
Bridget made it to her destination safely without further incident. And until I asked her to tell me the story for Wait For It, hadn't planned on talking about it again. I asked her why, and this was her response.
Bridget's story is my worst nightmare. Being marched off a full plane, then back on with everyone's eyes on you. People likely blaming you for the flight being delayed. She said it herself. It was humiliating. And I can relate to her tendency to blame herself. I assume that most things are my fault because I'm fat, even more so when it comes to flying.
And these humiliating stories aren't uncommon. I've heard many horror stories about being fat and flying, even though it's risky to tell them because sharing these stories opens fat folks to further humiliation. It feels like everyone agrees with the voice inside Bridget's head and inside my head. Well, it is your fault because you are fat.
But I don't think that fat folks should be the scapegoat for a problem that we didn't create. So who is to blame? That's after the break.
That is the sound of my phone going through an x-ray machine and of me gathering my stuff, putting it back into the bags and in my pockets and restacking the bins. Then I could put my shoes back on.
If I can take a flight without a major incident, like what happened to Brigid, then it's a success. But I spend a lot of time avoiding minor incidents when I take plane trips. Minor incidents like being groped on my chest and crotched by TSA because I have man boobs and my stomach hangs low, and the x-ray machine reads my body as me hiding prohibited items.
Minor incidents like the flight attendant making a grand show of getting me a seatbelt extender when I surreptitiously ask for one as I get on the plane. Minor incidents like bumping into someone as I try to walk down the narrow aisle to my seat. Minor incidents like seeing the concerned face of someone who realizes that they're sitting next to me.
So if I sound anxious in the tape you just heard, it's because I am anxious, and I just want to walk off the plane at my destination having not been humiliated. Everything I do at an airport and on the flight is to draw the least amount of attention to me as possible so that I don't get marched off the plane. I have to shrink myself.
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