Reactionary

I think plane rides from the past five years onward have become worse and worse and worse. Long lines, delays, overcrowding have all contributed to my sinking feeling every time I think of a vacation and have to consider the flight.

I’ve struggled to a cramped seat after hours at the airport in line, delayed because of the mysterious “mechanical failure” and finally feel I’m making progress when I hear it. The sustained screech of a banshee in the seat behind me. No, wait. It isn’t a banshee but the wail is still a harbinger of death… in someone else’s family. It’s a KID, that most dreaded of plagues, the Black Death of air travel, only to be outdone by siblings and parents who feel their spawn must be allowed to display their feelings as vociferously as possible. Usually the spawn has never heard the word “No” and is only referred to by a sickening array of names like “honey” and “sweetheart” rather than the more fitting “Evil Spawn of Death” or “brat” for short.

When the wailing begins, you can see it in the adult passengers’ faces. Recognition. Shock. Rage. Tears. Exhaustion. Like the five stages of grief. People give each other sidelong glances. Some try to drown out the noise with headphones. Some pretend they’re asleep. Some bury themselves in books. There is the odd person that completely loses it and is found catatonic in the back rocking themselves. It’s an insult. It’s like thinking you’ve finished the race to the plane only to find yourself wiped out at the finish line by a devil waving a bottle. “Curse you all!” you want to scream. “Death and misery to you down to the ninth generation.”

It’s an insult. An affront. Why must us all be held hostage to these creatures with their even more gracious parents just so little Tommy (who is too young to care) can go to Disneyland (where he’ll cry some more and make more enemies). I don’t remember going many places when my siblings and I were really young. If it wasn’t a car trip, we were left behind with grandma or another convenient relative so my parents and older siblings could enjoy their vacations. Why are people now unable to do this? They must bring their entire gypsy caravan of a family aboard an airplane and expect the rest of us to smile while their twits scream, cry, kick seats, and throw food. Your rights end when another’s begin. And mine began miles back. Control your whelp or get off the plane.

I hate child/ family apologists who make excuses for these people. Screamers, weepers, and miscreants of all stripes and ages should not travel on planes and should expect no special treatment. There should be a tariff on all runts. If noise begins, they need to get tranquilized like the pets or someone needs to make judicious use of duct tape. This is one of the things that gets me hottest and I’m glad to hear the first rumble of people wanting a change just as planes seem to be fuller and fuller of diapered devils and their overweight, pushy, preening mothers and their shell-shocked, helpless, incompetent fathers.

And One More Thing
I don’t hate your kids. I just hate your kids on planes and while I realize doing the above-mentioned activities are “developmentally appropriate” that kind of behavior is not appropriate for the close, exhausting, expensive environment of air travel no matter who you are. If you can’t abide by it, you shouldn’t be there. Demanding that people with brats should be on planes because it’s their “right” is like saying a blind person should become a practicing surgeon because that’s their right.

We laughed at the signs translated in Braille in the new ORs today. It’s the law to have signs in Braille… even if no one blind should be there for any reason whatsoever. Your government working for you once again.

Posted on July 25th, 2007 under Life, News, Rant •  Print •  Email • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback