It had been a week since the debacle with Southwest and it was time for me to fly back home. This time instead of being confronted at the gate I decided to be proactive about being what Southwest considers “[a] customer of size.”

Again I checked my bag, went through security, and arrived at my gate with ~45 minutes to spare. I walked up to the attendant at the booth and smiled.

Me: “Hey there – I’m a customer of size. Do I need a pre-boarding slip?”
Agent: “Do you have [indecipherable]… ?”
Me: “I have nothing but my ticket here – I just know I get singled out and wanted to get ahead of the curve.”
Agent: “Do you think you need a second seat?”
Me: “I don’t think I need one, but there was food in Ohio, so can’t be sure. I didn’t need one coming out here.”
Agent: “Oh okay, then you don’t need a second ticket then.”

She was nice about it, but it looks like there’s nothing I can do to control when and how I get picked out for being overweight short of presenting myself for inspection at the gate every time I fly. Leave it to the airlines to invent a new flavor of profiling.