I was flying early Christmas Day morning from PHL-ORD-SEA on United. I overheard the father in the seat behind me say to his young son, “Look closely out the window, maybe you will see Santa Claus.” I rolled my eyes and cringed knowing what would soon follow as the flight was delayed and the sun slowly started to rise. I overheard the son whine to the father it’s getting light out and I haven’t seen Santa, and then he started to cry. Thirty minutes later, the sobbing subsided and soon after we are up and on our way.
It started with a few thumps and soon cascaded into a full force assault as the little boy was kicking the back of my seat. With a smile, I kindly asked the boy’s parents to stop his actions and for 15 minutes I had peace. Then the kicking began again, with more force than before. I caught the attention of the FA and she asked the parents to control the little boy. Again I had peace for 15 minutes before the “fun” resumed. Showing my Christmas spirit, I stood up (actually crouched because the overhead bins make it impossible to stand) and very quietly mentioned to the father that if his son kicked my seat again, I would rip off the boy’s legs and beat the father to death with them.
The shocked look on the father was priceless, the mother immediately complained to the FA who gave me a thumbs up; the rest of the trip was quiet and peaceful.
I hope the physiatrist bill won’t be excessive when I’m blamed for this child’s failures the rest of his life.
Tagged as:
children & babies,
flight attendant,
holiday,
seats,
united airlines,
violence
On a recent flight to Edinburgh, a woman boarded the plane with 3 children (only one of whom was under 5, the others were about 10-12). As I boarded, I found a window seat but did not realize it was near this woman and her tribe of wild Indians.
Before the plane took off, the son was talking very loudly in two languages, one to his mother and the other to his father (sitting across the aisle). This continued as we took off and we could clearly hear the entire discussion above the drone of the plane. Once we were in the air, the boy decided he wasn’t going to sit still during the flight and began to kick the lower back of my seat, pulled on the top of the seat, pushed it, fell against it as if he were out on a playing field and seemed to have forgotten he was within the confines of an airplane and that the seat he was at war with was mine.
Since the flight was over 2 hours, I thought that by glaring at the mother each time he kicked me she would “get the message.” She did, but pretended not to and after an hour I’d had more than enough and asked her to tell her son to stop as he was incessantly kicking me in the lower back. Her response was “He’s a child,” as if that was an excuse for his poor behavior or her complete lack of parental skills…
For the rest of the flight (over an hour) I was obliged to sit leaning forward in my seat to avoid being kicked in the lower back.
I still wonder who was worse, the obnoxious son or his sorry excuse of a mother.
Tagged as:
children & babies,
seats
About two years ago I was on the worst flight of my life. The flight was from Kansas City to Chicago Ohare. Well after everyone had boarded I requested to be moved to a window seat, with an open aisle seat since I’m a bigger guy (the aircraft, a 737, had several open rows). Anyway the folks at American Airlines accommodated this request, and moved me to the exit row, also allowing me some extra leg room.
The plane taxis to the runway and I look around and realize one of the worst nightmares of flying - there were a ton of kids on the plane. Well after take off, once we hit cruising altitude, a kid who is maybe 6 years old is sent to sit in the exit row I’m in, next to his parents. First of all you have to be 16 to sit in an exit row, second of all I normally would not have a problem with this had the kid not immediately and rudely said something that implied my being overweight would cause the plane to crash. I call the flight attendant’s attention to the problem, and they move the kid to the open seat behind me, next to some one else.
About this time in the flight another kid gets up and starts doing the classic how many times can I hit everyone’s seat before I get yelled at. The flight attendants quickly had the sleeping parents get control of the kid. Meanwhile four babies all start crying, the chain reaction of one starts crying, the rest follow. As their parents try to calm them down, the kid behind me starts kicking the back of my seat as hard as he can, and at consistent 2-3 second intervals. I just sucked it up and tried listening to my music, but this hour long flight seemed to last longer than the 18 hours it took to fly from Thailand to Chicago.
The point behind this rant? Control your kids, and keep them near you on the flight. Who lets a six year old (okay he may have been closer to 8 or 9) sit away from his parents on any flight? This flight was a freaking zoo, and me (I was 18 at the time) and my parents both had the same idea to book it off the plane and rush to the car lot the second the doors were opened.
Tagged as:
american airlines,
children & babies,
portly
I was taking a quick flight back from Orlando, FL to Lubbock, TX with a brief stop in Austin to let passengers get off and more get on. While waiting to board in Orlando, I saw a small family (Dad, two year old son, and Very Pregnant Mom) sitting in front of me. Dad had brought the little boy a Happy Meal. Upon opening it, he refused to eat it, screaming ‘No!’ then pushing it away. I cringed; not that McDonald’s is the finest of foods, but the kid is two, meaning if he doesn’t eat something, he’ll get hungry and cranky within no time, and the rest of the passengers are going to have to deal with his screaming for the flight (I’m a teacher and former au pair; I know what little kids can be like when they’re not fed!).
I wish there could have been a bet on that one, because I would have won the jackpot. No sooner had the kid been buckled in the aisle across from me than he began screaming. Well, not ‘screaming,’ but rather shouting, ‘NO! NO! NO!’ at the top of his tiny little lungs. I took this as a cue to put on my headphones and drown out his very vocal temper tantrum. Perhaps it was because the ear buds I was using were from Walgreen’s and not top of the line, but that kid even drowned out my music he was that loud. After the plane had taken off, he still screamed ‘NO!’ but would change it in tempo, sometimes quickly shouting, ‘NONONONONO!’ in rapid succession, and then sometimes hollering ‘NOOOooooOO!’ in an almost Castrati-like operatic way with dips below and beyond the forte line. I must admit, when he then changed his operatic way to a shrieking ‘No! No! No!’ while violently kicking the chair in front of him (that passenger deserved canonization), he kept the bass line with the Tool song I was listening to (‘Parabalus’ if you must know). Finally, at one point, he settled down right before we landed in Austin. I took off my ear buds as the fellow passenger next to me tapped my arm. He asked loudly, somewhat jokingly, somewhat serious, if our future Axel Rose to the left had stopped.
As if on cue, our little protagonist screamed ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’ as if getting stabbed by Norman Bates in a shower. Our entire row cracked up. I looked at the father who had a ‘please shoot me’ look on his face while his son screamed himself blue and thrashed in his seat. Upon arriving in Austin, the family ran out of the plane as quickly as they could. The guy next to me asked the flight attendent if she knew what the little boy wanted, why he was carrying on the way he was. She cracked a huge smile and said, loudly, ‘Nooooo!’ Ah, at least she had a sense of humor.
At lunch with my new staff a few days later, a co-worker mentioned that one of the first words a toddler learns and says is ‘no.’ No one had any clue why I burst out laughing!
–Kris
Tagged as:
children & babies,
food & beverage
