Babies & Kids
KID KICKS SEAT, PASSENGER KICKS BUTTWhen I took a return flight from San Antonio, Texas back to Los Angeles, California I boarded like livestock on Southwest Airlines. Really no complaints until the rubber tires left the tarmac. I was hoping to enjoy the scenery on the way back but right from the moment of rubber/tarmac separation, this mother and child sitting together in one seat right behind me began to take precedence.
The little boy had to be about 3 to 4 years old. The mother had to be in her very late, "I'm better than you are", 30 years of age. The little boy began kicking the back of the seat. kicking. Kicking. KICKING! I finally turned around and politely asked if she could please have her little boy do something else because this repetitive whiplash was really becoming annoying. She said this is what little boys do. I told her that neither of my children did that and if they did I would redirect their urge to piss somebody off. Then she said no.
A Southwest Airlines flight attendant came by who happened to have the attitude that not only was she an overpaid waitress, but she was better than me and the mother with the child put together. I asked her if she could place the mother and the child someplace else. She said no. I then asked if I could sit someplace else. She asked why. So I politely said I have already explained my issue and if she does not allow me to move to another seat, it just might be best for her to locate the air marshall now because if I have to put up with this kid kicking the back of the seat for the entire flight, I just might have to go crazy and do something ridiculous while in flight.
The flying stewardess left for a minute and came back. She pointed to a seat where I could move to. I suppose if the flying stewardesses were more attractive instead of over worked, wrinkled up, and few pounds less of makeup to hide all that wear and tear, just maybe I could have over looked the first 2 hours and 15 minutes of kicking. Needless to say, I won't be flying Southwest Airlines anymore. 1/6/08
TODDLER SECTION SUGGESTION
I just experienced the toddler behind you kicking the back of your seat all the way from Chicago to Vegas phenomenon. This was coupled with the crying and demands of "I want apple juice" intermittenly throughout the flight. I don't own any children myself, and have been very happy with my choice. That is why it is so excruciatingly frustrating to have to put up with other people's choices, especially when paying 500+ for a holiday flight. Suggestion to airlines: why not have a toddler/baby section, just like the old smoking sections? It would place all the noxious behaviors (and sights, sounds, smells, etc.) away from the passengers who normally separate themselves from these annoyances. Trapped for 3+ hours with a demon child behind is just WRONG and should not have to be endured by any single, happily child-less woman. 12/07
MOMMY'S READY TO RUMBLE
This isn't my personal story, but one that my sister told me after she flew from NYC to Pittsburgh. Two rows behind her on the plane was a mother, father, and their young toddler-aged daughter. The daughter misbehaved terribly. She would sing out loud, kick the seat, toss crayons into the aisles, and pretty much just do whatever she wanted. Luckily, the flight wasn't long, because the mother and father never said anything to encourage the child to stop misbehaving. When the flight did land, a woman sitting in front of the parents and child turned and said, "you should know that your child is one of the most worst behaved children I have ever seen," and proceeded up the aisle to disembark. The next thing you know, the mother flies out of her seat and literally runs up the aisle after the woman. The child asks her father, "where did mommy go?" He tells her, "mommy's going to kick some ass." 12/07
CHILD IN CHARGE
On a flight from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles, I found myself lucky enough to sit in front of a family of two parents and a toddler-aged child. For the entire four hour flight, the child would scream intermittently and kick my seat constantly. About half way through the flight, I turn around and ask the child nicely if he could please quit kicking my seat. His mother proceeds to give me a nasty look and inform me that "he's just a child," to which I respond, "if you tell him to stop, you know, he just might." The mother looks at me with disgust and doesn't say anything to the child. When we finally arrive, I tell the parents that I just wanted them to know that I've never seen such a misbehaved child before. With that, I turn and exit the plane. 12/07
APATHETIC FATHER
I was on a flight going only halfway across the U.S. (thankfully only 2.5 hrs), sitting at a window with two seats to my left. A mother with a child of about 2 on her lap was next to me, and the father next to her. The mother actually had a ticket for the other side of the aisle, and the father and child for my side. But the father didn't seem too interested in taking care of the child, and the child must be incapable of sitting, because the mother had it in her lap. Her job was to keep it still. It wanted to lay there and kick rather than sit up, and lay there and kick it did. In my direction, too. Daddy had a magazine and didn't seem to want the child's head in his lap, so Mommy constrained it with its feet hanging underneath the armrest separating us. It kicked my thigh, and kicked, and kicked. When Mommy sat it upright, it screamed bloody murder. Daddy didn't even look up from his magazine. Every so often I turned at glared at her, which prompted the child being shifted so its head was on Daddy's lap. That lasted no more than about 3 minutes each time before he got an annoyed look and Mommy shaped up. Then she'd sit it up again, we all got sick of the screaming, and then it was lain down again.
When she had to use the lavatory, she asked him, "Hon, could you please take him for a minute?" and he looked over uncomprehendingly, slowly put the magazine in the seat pocket, took the kid without standing up, then realized that he had to stand and gave the kid back, then stood and took it, sat down and didn't manage to help it stop crying, and literally dumped it on Mommy's lap after she got back. Without a word, he was back to his magazine (no, not a work magazine--some low-quality news thing).
I actually felt sorrier for the mother than for myself when the flight was over. 12/07
BEST FRIENDS
I was on a non stop flight from Tampa to Toledo in a wide body L1011 I think they're called. I was seated on the right end of the middle 5 seats, beside a family of 2 boys, an 8 year old girl, and their mother. As we're taxiing to the runway, this little girl suddenly decided that I was her 'NEW BEST FRIEND', and proceeded to tell me ALL about her vacation, her school, her smelly brothers, her rash that is "still kinda itchy", her whole history, in fact. During one of these stories she mentioned that her teachers say that "I talk too much...do YOU think I talk too much? 'Cause I don't think I talk too much. I don't really think someone can talk too much. 'Cause they'd run out of air"; a miracle I was now begging for. These endless stories and opinions were only surpassed in pain by the fact that I was sniffling and my eyes were watering profusely for some unknown reason. I soon found out the reason, however, when I noticed that the gym bag she'd been holding in her lap for the entire flight was intermittently squirming. I finally realized that in the end of the bag was a gray haired freakin' CAT, to which I'm very allergic. So here I am, sitting in an enclosed tube of aluminum, with recycled air, next to a squirming shedding live allergen spewing beast, and I'm not referring to the little girl mind you. As the flight ended, her mother thanked me for entertaining her little "joy" (her words), and off they went, hopefully into another town far away from me...... 10/07
PUNGENT PERFUME AND DIRTY DIAPERSOn a long, long flight from Amsterdam to Singapore about 10 years ago, I was seated next to a very pleasant Vietnamese woman who was going back to her native homeland for the first time in decades. With her was her 2 year old granddaughter. After about 45 minutes into the flight I noticed that the girl had soiled her diaper. Not a problem I thought... I have kids and she just needs to be changed. No, no, no... For the next 10+ hours she did not in fact change the diaper, but simply from time to time poured some really bad perfume down the child's rear end, immensely compounding the problem. It was everything I could do to keep it together having to endure this awful bouquet that was now overly pungent. 10/07
BRAT ON BOARD
My flight from hell happened on an overnight flight from Paris to Detroit. Before we boarded the plane my husband and I noticed a very loud, very disobedient young girl wreaking havoc in the terminal. I laughed and commented to my husband that with my luck, that child would be on our plane. Well, not only was she on our plane, she was seated directly behind me in coach class. This little girl was young enough not to be required to be in her own seat so she was seated in her grandmother’s lap. From the minute the plane took off, this girl screamed and cried uncontrollably and constantly kicked the back of my seat. At no time did the mother, grandmother, or flight attendant attempt to quiet or control her. While her screaming was irritating to all on board, I was the unlucky one to have 8 very long hours of my seat being kicked. Before the flight had landed, I overheard the grandmother say, “The lady in front of us is going to want to kill us.” Yet at no time was I offered an apology. 10/07 Signed, Forget Paris
TODDLER CREATES TURBULENCE
I was on a cruise for 7 days, and the last night we all decided to stay up all night and see the ship come in to port and watch the sun rise. When I finally got on the plane, expecting to sleep all the way home, the toddler behind me had different ideas. He banged his plastic keys on the fold down tray all the way home. His mom did nothing to stop him, whatsoever. I was never so tired in my life!!! 10/07
TITANIC TODDLER CREATES TUMULT
I must preface this entire "flight from hell" with the fact that my outbound flight was an average, crappy-style flight. I was scheduled to arrive in Buffalo from Tampa at 8 or so pm. My layover - or should I say over night visit - was in Philadelphia. I did eventually arrive in Buffalo and over-enjoyed a close friend's bachelor party. The next day I was tired, hung-over, and in a generally bad mood. What a great day to fly! I arrived to the Buffalo airport in the early morning to find my return flight delayed. After about 2 hours of waiting, I did some quick calculations in my head and determined that if I didn't get on a plane in the next 15 or so minutes I didn't have a shot at all to make my connection. I inquired with the travel-agent-computer-typer-bad-news-giver-lady to see if she can do anything to help this situation. She offers an alternate flight to Atlanta, but she cannot guarantee that I get from Atlanta to Tampa. My response…whatever…Atlanta is closer to Tampa than Buffalo...has to be quicker…right? I get to Atlanta on time, get a seat on the next plane to Tampa, all is right with the world. Well, I get bumped from the first flight to Tampa…and the next one. Third time's the charm, and at the third terminal I am guaranteed a seat to Tampa. The plane should be arriving shortly I was told. I wait….and wait….minutes to hours…hours to days…days to years….well…no…but when all's said and done…we are to depart at 2:00am and arrive in Tampa at 3:30 am. Awesome, what else could go wrong? We begin boarding, and I walk down the aisle searching feverishly for 42B. Momentary relief, no fat guy, but middle seat, last row, no reclinability, total bummer. I'm the first to sit down in my row, so I get to watch as all the people parade down the row, and again I find divinity as person after person sits in rows other than mine. Fat guy goes to 28A. Possible terrorist into 33C. Smelly looking old lady stumbles down into 40E. Finally average looking lady slips in next to me at 42A. Could be worse. The cabin appears to be secure. Could I have struck gold? No one in the aisle seat….the aisle seat is mine?! But alas, I had thanked the heavens prematurely. Down comes a lady clutching several rather large carry-ons. Wait, the one isn't a carry one…it's…oh no…a baby…no worse than a baby…a toddler. But…this toddler is not ordinary he's huge. Not like fat huge, or like cute huge. He's just like huge huge. Like third grader size. So our steroid-giant-baby is staring at me during our safety lesson. He's staring at me while I'm being informed to turn off my electronics. He's staring at me while I make sure my non-reclinable chair is in its full and upright position, my seatbelt is securely fashioned, and my tray table is in its upright and locked position. But whatever, I won't be disturbed and bothered by his twilight hours mind games. I'm just going to curl up in between my designated armrests and take a little nap… "Excuse me."
"Excuse me. Can I ask you…"
I peek hoping the questions are not being directed toward me.
"Excuse me. Can I ask you for a favor?"
"Uh…yeah…sure…fine."
"Can you just hold little Dylan here for a second? I just need to…" as she reaches up toward the overhead. Falling short of reaching it by, oh, I don't know, a billion feet.
"Yeah…whatever." So I am passed this Dylan thing. I hold it so he has one of each of his size 11s on each knee and he's staring - no, glaring - into my eyes. I see his giant cogs working. Meanwhile, Mom is getting up to get whatever it is that is so important as to place her child into the hands of a complete, and quite frankly, irresponsible stranger. She grabs a sweater. A gesture toward me as to say, "just a sec more…OK?" She turns and walks to the bathroom.
WHAT. WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED? I am stranded in my seat holding a prize winning pumpkin-child and the mother is gone. Out of sight. I know this, and of course, Dylan knows this. He takes one last wide and evil-eyed looked at me, and proceeds to cry. And scream. And wiggle. And kick. And cry. And cry. And cry. Have you ever tried to soothe a total stranger's incredibly large, evil baby at 3 am on an airplane? No? Me neither. No idea how to do it. So Dylan cried. For 5 minutes he cried. And people began to awake. Another 5 and people attempted to murder me with dirty looks. Another 5 and people got out of their seats to see what's wrong. Another 5 and people are offering me advice, toys, money, anything to shut Dylan up. Anything. Why Dylan? Why won't you shut up? Oh…that's right, you're sitting on the lap of a total stranger and your mom is no where to be found. Alleluia, the mother returns. And as soon as Dylan sees Mom…silence. Dead silence. The water works stop. And he looks at me, glares, and smiles. Oh boy, Dylan, I could just kill you. Mom comes over. Looks at me. Picks up Dylan. Sits back down. And then nothing. Yeah, that's right. You heard me…nothing. MOM DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING. No thanks. No thank-you. No gracias. No nothing. Oh my. There is going to be a murder. Now it was my turn to glare. And I did. Until big Dylan and Mommy-no-manners got off the plane. If you are out there Mommy-no-manners, I just have one thing to say to you: "YOU'RE WELCOME!" 10/07 Signed, Ex-Babysitter
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