During Christmas 2006, I fly home from California to Massachusetts to spend holidays with the family. My fiance and I board the plane to MA to take the 6 hour flight and he agrees to change seats with me as I was sitting directly next to a toddler and did not want to. Odd behavior, right? Not for me. I am an emetophobic (for those that don’t know it is a debilitating fear of myself/anyone vomiting). It sounds irrational, but it’s what I was dealt, and it’s not fun at all. Anyhow, being aware that sometimes kids experience motion sickness, my guy agreed to take the seat next to the toddler, just in case. The flight turned out to be a breeze, and the toddler was very well behaved due to parents entertaining/staying on top of the child’s needs.
Now on the way back to Cali shortly after Christmas, we board the plane and I notice immediately that there are 2 babies, and five toddlers (yes five) seated immediately around us. I felt like we were seated in the middle of a McDonald’s playground. This should have been my first clue for the hell that I was about to endure. I did not ask to switch seats with my BF, figuring I was being silly and overly-cautious during the first flight. Then HE and his parents board the plane. “He” is the child who will haunt my nightmares for years to come. We’ll call him Jared, and Jared was a child of about five years old who looked like was just a miserable, angry little kid who I got the pleasure of sitting directly next to, with an aisle between us. Within three minutes everyone seated within five rows knew his name because (sorry to call a kid this but…) he was a total brat #1, and #2 his parents were a fan of the “Let’s Loudly Talk It Out And Then Bargain With The Five Year Old” technique. Example:
Jared: Upon boarding the plane, stomps his feet furiously and yells at a mom and two toddlers ”YOU’RE IN MY SEAT!!!!”
Jared’s Mom: “OK Jared, I know you’re feeling angry right now but the flight attendant switched out seats for a reason. Jared… Jared? Now if you want to come sit in this seat next to Daddy and me, we’ll give you a CINNAMON RAISIN BAGEL, JARED.”
Parents like this are just about as clueless as they come. In their minds, I am sure they think they come off as edgy, hip, new-age parents who are PATIENT and UNDERSTANDING, but really, they just breed brats and annoy everyone around them.
Anyhow, Jared’s lack of discipline continued to prove itself evident as he lashed out verbally and physically against his mother and baby sister. This kid was the most angry child I have ever seen. I don’t think I heard so many “I HATE YOUS” in my life from a child, or anything human for that matter. The bargaining also continued and once Jared stuffed his bagel down his gut he stopped bratting for five minutes and stared grumpily at a laptop playing a Backyardigans DVD. It was then that Mom and Dad took advantage over the cabin’s first silent moment and felt it was the appropriate time to loudly discuss Jared’s angry behavior with one another. Then slowly but surely the babies began to cry, first one then the other. This kicked off the toddlers becoming unruly. Before we knew it, we were surrounded by yells, screams and shrieks, and two toddlers who began running up and down the aisle. This continued for the last two and a half hours of the flight. My BF and I were officially in hell. The other passengers looked like they were beyond miserable; annoyed glances were given amidst the chaos and there were people shaking their heads.
Finally, we begin to descend. At this point the babies are still crying, but there is one toddler two rows back who is incessantly shrieking the loudest angriest continual PIERCING shriek I have ever EVER heard. No lie, this shit sounded animalistic… primal. Suddenly in the midst of this, I notice that Jared has become eerily quiet and something in me begins to freak out as my “emetophobe radar” begins to blare from within. Jared’s eyes looks glazed and he’s staring straight ahead, pale as a sheet.
I knew.
Jared’s Idiot Mother: “JARED SWEETIE ARE YOU OK? WHAT’S WRONG JARED? JARED ARE YOU OK? HOW ARE YOU FEELING JARED?”
I quickly ducked into my guy’s arms, covered my ears and slammed my eyes shut, desperately trying to block it all out. Sure enough, within 5 seconds, Jared’s vomit vapors wafted up my nose. As if on cue, the pilot’s voice spoke within the cabin and made my very worst nightmare 100% complete: “Folks we apologize for the inconvenience but there are a few planes in front of us so we’re just going to taxi the run-way for a few more minutes.” I’m trying to get myself together when suddenly I hear:
“NOW JARED, THAT WAS CALLED THROWING UP. WHEN I WAS LITTLE, WE CALLED IT ‘THE SICKIES’! NOW IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE GOING TO DO THAT AGAIN, YOU NEED TO TELL MOMMY… I THINK YOU MIGHT BE ALL DONE THOUGH… WHAT A WASTE OF A PERFECTLY GOOD BAGEL… HAHAHAHAA! LOOK SWEETIE, I SEE RAISINS!… JARED, IF YOU HELP MOMMY CLEAN UP THE SICKIES WE CAN GO TO GRAMMA’S POOL WHEN WE GET HOME!!”
How much I hated that women at the moment I still can’t even express. NO ONE on the plane was amused and utterances of “unbelievable” and “get me the hell out of here” could be heard. Then Dumb Ol’ Dad begins to boom:
“YOU KNOW, I WASN’T FEELING SO GOOD MYSELF EARLER. MAYBE IT WAS SOMETHING WE ALL ATE.”
You moron!!! I am not even a parent and I knew that your kid was going to chuck his cookies all over the plane. It wasn’t something he ate, he was motion-sick and agitated by the drones of Angry Shriek Child! Gawd!!! How can parents be so clueless?!
Meanwhile, the babies were still wailing away but The Shrieker had ceased his ear-splitting screams. The rest of the toddlers were still restless and all I could think was, Get. Me. The. Hell. Off. This. Plane.
So yeah, since then, call me crazy, but I will go through all extremes to make sure I do not sit next to a child on planes. I vow that unless it is an emergency, I will *never* travel by plane with small children. They obviously don’t like it, it must hurt their ears, they are bored out of their fricken skulls… so why torture everyone else??? I now pray before a flight that an ill-behaved child will not end up next to me. I have been lucky. I have flown twice since then and my flight has been bratty-child free! Whoopee!! However, I suspect that my flight home will not hold as much luck. We will be tortured by Children On Planes again, no doubt. Until then, I can only hope for the best.
Tagged as:
children & babies,
disability,
holiday,
vomit
