Jack Spratt Could Eat no Fat....

Back Fat.

Back fat?

On MSN.com today under the health section was a listing for “Back Fat”.

The first thing that popped into my mind was a new Ted Nugent song.

Go ahead try it.

“Well I don't know where it comes from
But it sure do come
Don’t want it comin' for me
The pizzas probably do it
Cause they’re just to damn good
Much better than celery

They give me Back Fat Fever… Back Fat Fever…”

I take great pleasure in knowing that many of you will now have this song stuck in your head.

For those of you that just don’t get this look up Ted Nugent on Wikipedia.

Almost everything can be found on Wikipedia.

Unfortunately they have no references to “Back Fat”.

It also can’t help you with Homeland Security and the TSA.

Let explain.

I spent four days in Chicago last week.

I love Chicago.

I hate flying to Chicago.

I also hate flying back from Chicago.

Because I hate flying coach.

On the way to Chicago I had a Hassidic Rabbi fully recline his seat in front of me the entire flight.

His head was in my lap for four hours.

By the time we landed I actually felt a tad German.

On the way back I had made up my mind that no way in hell was I going to let that happen again no matter who sat in front of me.

I had the window seat and my wife had the middle seat.

At first I was feeling a little light headed because no one sat in front of us. We actually had three empty seats right in front of us. Can you believe it?

I was so happy.

Then it happened.

Coming on to the plane late were Conan the Barbarian, Helga the Circus Fat Lady and their demon spawn.

Well ladies and gentleman there’s a time in every man’s life were he needs to stand up for himself. A time to say I’m a man and I control my own destiny. A time to say I’m a man and I’m going to prop my knees against that seat in front of me, lock my arms against it and make sure that son of a bitch is not reclining that seat.

And that’s exactly what I did.

Conan sits in front of me, Damian sits in front of my wife and Helga sits on the aisle.

We take off and I’m ready.

There’s no way in hell that seat is reclining.

After we’re airborne Conan tries to recline.

Sorry sucker!!!!

He tries and tries. He’s now throwing his back against the seat trying to make it go back. Repeatedly he thrusts himself harder and harder at the seat.

All I could think of was a line from the war movie "The Longest Day".

“Hold until relieved….hold until relieved.”

My wife is mortified

She whispers to me, “Knock it off they’ll throw us off the plane.”

“Not at 30,000 feet they won’t”

“Idiot you’re going to cause a scene.”

Damian has now turned around in his middle seat and is looking over the seat at me.

“I want PEANUTS!!!!”

You know the expression, “No child left behind”?

They’re wrong.

We all know at least one child that should have been left behind and one of them was sitting in front of my wife.

“I want some Peanuts! I want some Peanuts!”

My knees are sore but I’ve held fast. Conan is frantically trying to force the seat back.

And then I hear Helga the circus lady talk, “Get the plane lady to see if she can fix it.”

The plane lady?

Conan’s hand reaches up to press the call button for the flight attendant.

My wife is now pinching the back of my left arm as hard as she can to get me to relent.

“Hold until relieved…hold until relieved…..”

“Sir, what are you doing sir?”

A flight attendant that looked like a six foot tall version of Wednesday from the Addams Family was hovering over us.

“I’m uh… stuck…. my knees seem to be locked against this seat. As you can see I’ve been trying to push the seat up to release my knees but the guy in front of me has trapped me here.”

My wife is now pretending she’s married to the woman on the other side of her.

Damian is yelling at the flight attendant, point blank, for some peanuts.

Wednesday Addams leans across my wife’s seat and in a voice normally reserved for morons says, “Sir, I suggest you move your knees. We have an air marshal on this flight.”

“Really? Does he have short legs? Maybe he’d like to sit behind this asshole.”

(Please let me have just said that in my head.)

I believe it was Mother Theresa or Jose Cuervo that said, “Timing is everything.”

Just as Conan gave one big push to recline I lowered my knees and let go of the seat. He flew backwards; the “Sky Mall” magazine in his hand flew over my head hitting the lady behind me in the face.

I know that because she yelled, “The Sky Mall magazine hit me in the face.”

All I could think of at the moment was, “Who shops at the Sky Mall?”

Who gets on an airplane, looks at that magazine, and impulsively orders a treadmill, an upside down tomato garden or a rusty gears clock?

Seriously, do you know anyone that’s ever ordered anything from the Sky Mall?

And why was Conan reading this?

He was probably just looking at the pretty pictures.

Wednesday Addams is now really pissed off with me and informs me that she will be watching me the rest of the flight.

So I ask her for a copy of Sky Mall magazine.

She wasn’t amused.

If MSN.com had only posted todays article before I went to Chicago.

Then I could have blamed my behavior on, “Back Fat Fever….Back Fat Fever….”