I knew I was in for it when we were boarding the plane and there was an overweight, unkempt woman with long, uncombed straggly hair pushing a wheelchair full of comforters and torn bags to my gate. Beside her was her cheese curl guzzling son, also wearing tapered leg sweatpants, doing his best to keep up and not carry any of the assorted junk they had somehow gotten through security. They were in Zone #1, I being in Zone #9 thought I was safe, so I stood there and silently chuckled to myself as they walked up to the ticket taker, handed over their seat assignments, and proceeded to unload the contents of the wheelchair in a location such that none of the people behind them could move forward to board the plane. The twosome was absolutely oblivious to the many nasty looks they were receiving, and continued to pile their Nascar sleeping bag and pillows without cases at record setting slowness while others waited.
Then, like a tornado of unnecessary procreation, two families, each with an infant and a 2-3 year old burst onto the plane as the doors were getting ready to close. This was not going to be good. I was hit in the face with baby carriers, kicked in the back, and had all kinds of baby items dropped on me as these two groups tried to get their various items together so we could finally take off. Meanwhile there was a lovely little girl, about 4 maybe, sitting with her dad in the row across from me, completely ignoring the impeding doom and watching a Disney movie on her tiny, pink DVD player.
About 10 minutes later they were settled, I use that term loosely to mean that everyone was strapped in, and we were given clearance to head for take off. During this time the front family’s older child was asking, very loudly, what happens if our plane crashes and why his mom was shaking (apparently she had a fear of flying, I am sure those comments really helped), and the back family was having drama about a missing blanket. The baby belonging to the front family started to scream as soon as the thrust to take off kicked in, sending the back baby into a panic as well. This was followed by the back family’s child screaming his head off that he wanted to sit next to his mom that was seated in the row directly across from him; he was completely ignored, with the exception of everyone else on the plane that had to hear his ranting.
About 30 minutes in, still more whining about the blanket by the back family’s mom, and the front family was still trying to soothe their screaming infant. The soothing eventually turned into an argument between the husband and wife (I assume) about who was supposed to pack the bottles and how awful it was that they could not get up and walk around. Instead of actually getting up and walking to the back, the, again overweight, woman decided to turn her seat into a rocking chair. This may have been the most inconsiderate and uncomfortable behavior I have ever had to endure on a plane. Forget trying to get my laptop out and use it, I instead had to focus on not having my legs crushed by her large body mass every time the seat went into a backwards decent. To top it all off, she felt it was necessary to drape her oily ponytail over the back of the seat so it was practically hanging inside my book.
The flight home from Salt Lake City was about an hour and thirty-five minutes. The rocking ceased about an hour in to the flight when the baby finally fell asleep, although the back family was never able to get their children under control. They were constantly trying to put the older boy back into his seat belt and the small baby was crying intermittently until we deplaned (the mother blamed the loss of the blanket, which was her husband’s fault since he was supposed to be keeping tabs on everything, right…). All the while the angelic little girl to my left kept watching her movie and eventually fell asleep on her dad’s lap, covered with a fleecy Disney princesses blanket.
This may have been one of the worst flights of my life. I like kids, I really do, and I have made it a point to not be easily bothered by most everyday annoyances, but this was off the charts. The complete lack of self awareness exhibited by these people was astounding. I mean, do you really think its ok to throw your nasty ponytail in someone else’s face? Or chuck your baby seat around so I get hit in the head? I understand it is probably stressful traveling with small children, but the numbers were even – one kid to one parent – and the people to my left (the mom and son were in the row in front of the dad and daughter) had children the same ages and were managing just fine!! I will just take this as one more real life experience to support my theory for parental aptitude testing before you are allowed to further overpopulate the planet.
On a side note, my first flight was fine, except for the fact that I finally got to ride on one of the planes with the in seat TV screens, allowing you to watch shows, play games, and track flight status, and guess who’s was the only one on the plane that did not work…
