To start off, I’m a tiny girl, 5’2″ and 110 lbs. But just because of that, please don’t look at the extra space I have in my seat as “up for grabs.”
Anyway, I’m flying home to Buffalo on American (or was it US Airways?) and it’s going to be a 4 hour flight. In the terminal, there was a huge father and his huge son; the son was probably 16 or so, but he was a bit “off.” Twice, the father had to tell him to be quiet and “Keep your hands to yourself” when he reached for any woman/girl who walked by.
When I walked by for my boarding group, the kid said to me, “Are you ticklish?” My “Ewww!” alarms went off, and the father stopped him and again said, “Hands to yourself!”
I got to my window seat and I slammed that arm rest down fast. In my purse I have my peanut butter and apple slice sandwiches. I was so hungry that I took a bite of the first one.
So this huge father and son come down the aisle and the father looks at me and says, “Here we are in our row.” Then he starts the “Mind if I?” and reaches to raise the arm rest. Answer is, “Sorry, no.” The scene gets tense! Then he says with a smile, “But you’re so tiny.”
Then the kid sees me and says, “Ticklish!” followed by him staring at my sandwich. He points and mumbles something. He does more pointing.
The father sees the sandwich and says, “Is that peanut?”
“Yeah.”
“My son could die from peanuts!”
As this goes on, the plane is filling up and they’re blocking the rows. The FA comes over to help out and he explains about the peanut situation. The FA asks me if I’ve had some and I honestly replied, “I’ve had about three of these today, plus almonds, cashews, walnuts.” I’m contaminated!
So the FA says to the father and son duo to take some seats in the back that are together. Then a nice mother/daughter group sits down in my row. The FAs come on the speaker and say, “Due to a peanut allergy, we won’t be serving peanuts on this flight. If you have brought anything with peanuts, please refrain from consuming it.”
The daughter then says, “Oh man!” After about 30 minutes while we were in the air I see her lift up her jacket and proceed to take bites of her Snickers bar. I was starting to get hungry. Then I heard the father from a few rows back scream out, “Hands to yourself!” Five minutes later I hear again, “Hands to yourself!”
Then the son gets seasick and throws up and misses a barf bag. The smell was AWFUL! Then the lady sitting next to them has to run to the forward bathroom to get cleaned up, and the father/son go to the rear ones. I turned on the vent overhead full blast and the Snickers girl offered us all a few pieces of peppermint gum to help out with the smell. After a few hours, I was starving and I ate my sandwiches.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Truly a Flight From Hell.
Especially for the poor woman sitting next to the grabby son who threw up on her!
I have a lot of sympathy for people with bad allergies and how hard their lives must be, but there's only so much reasonable accommodation a business can give, especially in an airplane. I frequently fly with my cat in-cabin and twice have had people (nowhere near me) freak out because they have allergies and going so far as to demand I be kicked off the plane. Maybe if your allergies are that severe you should check the airline's policies first to see if they allow in-cabin pets.
If they were (he) was THAT prone to death to peanuts, they should just fu….ing drive. Or put them in the baggage hold area. Sorry you had to endure that. Eeckh.
I wasn't there and have no idea why the young disabled person was ill. However, vomiting is one of the ways that the body responds to a severe food allergy. It might be better for everyone if the airline just prohibited peanut products of all kinds on airplanes–although that is highly unlikely. Should you be allowed to bring something onto a plane that could KILL another human being just because it is convenient for you? Peanuts are considered a normal part of American food culture, we believe peanuts are good because they are part of so many childhood memories and they are not going away soon. I understand this. By far the worst part of this story is the idea that people with allergies are the problem and that there is no compassion for the difficulties of others. That Dad did not have a great flight either.
Where do you draw the line? There are =many other common allergens on airplanes. Do we ban them all?
Well, buddy, we cannot accommodate EVERYONE who has some kind of an allergy. No peanuts, no dairy, no perfumes, no shampooed hair… – give me a break. If you have such a serious, debilitating condition connected to something ubiquitous among the majority of people, then you need to carefully consider your traveling arrangements. But you cannot expect a couple of hundred people to change for the needs of one.
They aren't going away at all ~
omg
I have had severe allergies my whole life and I'm not a total creeper and I don't expect an entire flight to not eat their food. If they are that allergic where they can't even come in contact with the smells of peanut butter than maybe they need to live in a bubble. The kid probably has allergies from the roundup used on plants. That's the deal with the wheat consumed in the US , it's sprayed with roundup right before harvest not for weed control but to kill the wheat itself it opens up the seed to help the drying process. It's banned in Europe but not here yet. Too much money to be made by Monsanto they will fight hard to keep us sick for higher profits.
well, that sucks for everybody. I am an emetophobe! YUK! I also feel bad for the father who had to deal with his mentally challenged son.