REINFORCING THE CULT OF PERSONAL FRAGILITY

   NP:  When next you shoehorn yourself into one of America’s ever-shrinking airline seats, you might encounter a new wrinkle in the romance of air travel. You might be amused, or not, to discover a midsize — say, two-metre long — boa constrictor named Oscar coiled contentedly, or so you hope, in the seat next to you. Oscar is an “emotional-support animal.”
   Delta Airlines experienced a nearly one-year doubling of what it delicately calls “incidents” (urinating, defecating, biting). “Farm poultry,” hedgehogs and creatures with tusks are unwelcome on Delta, which is going to be alert regarding the booming market for forged documents attesting to emotional neediness. The Association of Flight Attendants is pleased, perhaps because one of its members was asked to give a dog oxygen because the dog’s owner said it was having a panic attack.
  The proliferation of emotional-support animals suggests that a cult of personal fragility is becoming an aspect of the quest for the coveted status of victim.