T GAMBLE: Airline proposal brings up a weighty matter

I’m thinking about changing professions. I’m been a lawyer for a while, and it does not have the excitement for me that it once did. I need stimulation in my advancing age.

So I’m thinking about applying to be the new weight checker for all the airlines. I saw last week that all major airlines are considering requiring you to weigh in before you board a flight. You know, sort of like they do your baggage right now. “Sorry, sir, your bag is over 50 pounds. You will have to pay $50 extra.” This usually results in my opening the bag and chunking anything out that has a value of less than $50. Underwear? Who needs them on a vacation? Out they go. Same for soap and deodorant; we’re going to France after all.

I have no idea what happens if you are over the weight limit. The airlines claim they may let you, instead of live weigh-ins, use the weight on your driver’s license. Are they out of their everloving minds? The only thing more inaccurate than a driver’s license weight is an income tax return filed by a single-owned cash-only business. My license still has my weight from 1983. I can’t hardly get pants from that era on one leg now, not that I would want to wear any pants I had from 1983.

Maybe since COVID-19 has shut down most fairs and circuses, the airlines can hire one of those guys who guesses your weight to just stand beside the line as each person goes through the scanning ritual and he can call out each ones weight. “She’s about 245, and the fellow behind her is 316. Boy the middle-seat passenger on this one is going to be very unhappy.”

My biggest concern is just what do they plan to do with the information? Are we going to start flying by the pound? Will I check the airline schedule and yell to my wife, “Hey honey, we can fly United for only $2.52 a pound to New York this weekend. All we have to do is lose 55 pounds before next Wednesday.” Will flying be like checking the weekly grocery store flyer in the paper? “Fly to Bermuda! First passenger, $1.35 per pound, and the second only 62 cents per pound.”

Maybe they will become like big trucks on the highway with a set load limit. “This flight can weigh in no more than 50,000 pounds of passengers. I’m sorry but the cast and crew from ‘My 600-Pound Life’ is traveling today so we are cancelling the last 12 passengers on the flight list.” Who knows, it could bring being really fat back into vogue. Back in the middle ages it was a sign of extreme wealth if you were fat. Thus, the ultimate chick magnet. Imagine, “Look at the size of that man, Cindy. He must be loaded to afford air travel to China at his size. I’m going to try and sit next to him.”

The biggest challenge will obviously be getting women to weigh on a scale in front of anybody. Give them an option: weigh right now and have the results announced in front of everyone, (I thought you said you weighed 122, not 188!) or run buck naked through the entire airport. In 10 minutes, the airport would be full of women running around naked. Now men will not care about weigh-ins. “Hell yeah, 305, I knew I’d bust 300 before long!”

I’ll wait to see what they do before I start my weight-loss program. I really want to go to Italy, but I may need to lose 60 pounds to afford it. I’m not losing it unless it saves me money, so airlines, my health is up to you. Right now, my license says it’s pretty good at 215.