Fats on a plane - more annoying than a crying toddler I was returning home to the East Coast after traveling out west to attend a wedding with my parents. Normally when we fly together, we simply get all 3 seats in a row, and the only discomfort I have to deal with is the lack of leg room. But our connecting flight out of Chicago was a smaller plane with only 2 seats on each side of the aisle, so I took the single seat so my parents could sit next to each other. As we were waiting to board, I'm taking note of the few planets that are on the flight, silently hoping the same thing that everyone else hopes when they see hams that are on their flight: "Please don't let any of those things sit next to me". As I'm boarding and making my way to my seat, my heart sank into the pit of my stomach when I saw one of the hams in the seat next to mine. The arm rest was up of course, with the folds of excess calories spilling over into my already small seat. Putting my carry-on into the overhead compartment, I calmly and quietly sat down and firmly lowered the arm rest as I did - pushing the concave adipose folds out of the area I would be sitting. The celestial body began to contest, complaining that the armrest would make it uncomfortable for the flight and tried to lift it back up at the same time it asked if it would be okay to do so. I had to grab the lifesaving small divider to stop it from letting the results of gratuitous poor eating choices spill back across and press against me. Coldly, I told it that I wanted the armrest down to ensure that I had enough space to sit. It continued to protest and promptly hit the button to call the flight attendant, but since the plane was still boarding there was no chance of either attendant getting to us any time soon. I simply sat there with my left arm tucked into the space between the armrest and my ribs, while stopping the lumpy mound of flesh from repeatedly attempting to lift the bar separating us. When my father quietly asked if I wanted to switch seats with him, I simply glared and minutely shook my head; I wasn't going to simply transfer the suffering. After the plane was fully boarded the flight attendant finally got to us, and the planetoid complained that having the armrest down was making it uncomfortable. The stewardess, looking a bit exasperated and clearly not wanting to deal with this, asked me if I really needed to have the armrest down. I informed her that I was dealing with tendon and nerve entrapment issues in my left arm and elbow as a result of an injury and surgery, and I pulled out my phone to show her a recent email between my orthopedist over the subject. The fat loudly suggested that we switch seats so that I would be in the window seat so the armrest could be on my right side and be up. Somewhat smugly, I retorted that if the armrest was up in that seating configuration I would end up with my left arm and shoulder pressed against the side of the cabin, and that would end up with the same resulting pain. The flight attendant asked if anyone wanted to change their seat, but of course no one wanted to switch to sit next to a fat (thankfully my father didn't offer to swap at that point). When no one else came forward, the obeast was informed that either the armrest would be able to be kept down, or it would need to leave the booked flight and purchase two seats on a flight the next day. Defeated, the planetoid muttered about me being an asshole and put it's headphones on while leaning on the armrest to try and occupy as much of my seat as it could. Since it decided to do that, I felt no reason to be passive and stopped holding in any gas; having consumed a large meal of Sauerkraut and Knackwurst at a delicious German deli the day before, it was a pretty offensive smell that drew some disgusted glares directed towards the ham. After takeoff the flight was rather rough, and towards the back of the plane there was a family with a young toddler sitting on his mother's lap. Unfortunately for them, the mother and toddler were also seated next to another obese passenger since the father was across the aisle with their other child. To make matters worse, the late flight's rough weather had awoken the child, making him cranky and crying intermittently. When I passed by on my way to the restroom and saw the second fat's face of utter contempt of having to sit next to a crying child, I felt it was my best chance to change seats. Especially since I didn't want to reengage with the celestial object over the armrest that I was sure was now back up since I left the seat. Calling the flight attendant after using the bathroom, we offered the second, larger obeast a chance to switch seats away from the loud child; it took the chance pretty much before the sentence was completed.  After I took the loud seat the other fat has left, the mother was able to have a bit more room to try to lull her son back to sleep. She was very apologetic over the situation and felt terrible over her son's crying; a stark contrast to the behavior of the fat I had had to sit next to. I tried to help by interacting with the little boy to get him to settle down; which he finally did in a little bit, and about 2/3 of the way through the flight he finally fell back asleep. After landing and disembarking, my parents told me how the fat that was seated next to me had immediately put up the armrest and positioned itself slightly over the middle of the seats to try and block any attempt at re-lowering the armrest. As I had thought, I would have had to get into another fight over the seating condition had I not been able to switch the seat. My father laughed when he told me how the face of the fat dropped when it saw that the larger planet had switched seats with me, and that they had to be squeezed together for the last 90 minutes of the flight. The ham that had no issue when it was going to be the one encroaching on another's space had to endure when the opposite position. It continued to glare at me when we were waiting to pick up our checked luggage as I kept a shit-eating grin on my face. TL;DR -  A fat was pouring over into my seat during a flight, complained about the armrest I kept down between us. I was able to switch seats later in the flight with a larger fat who was sitting next to a crying toddler. The two fats had to be squeezed together for the rest of the flight.  It was less annoying to sit next to the crying child than the fat.