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Saturday, November 26, 2011

Bye Bye Sun~ Hello Holiday Travel and Rude Passengers






In the Seattle airport for a 2 hr layover. Just got off a flight from Phoenix to Anchorage. I sat with Nora and Stuey on the airplane and they watched a movie.

At the very start of the flight, Nora lightly touched the seat of the lady in front of her. She promptly turned around and said in an uptight voice, "Hi kids what are your names? I don't want you touching my seat. It really bothers me." this took me by surprise, as they had barely touched her seat. Nonetheless, the flight proceeded with only a few arguments amongst the kids. And the kids were really good about not touching her seat. On a scale of 1-10 of flying misbehavior (10 being worst possible), I'd say they were a 3-4.( And we've seen a 10...when Nora cried for 5 hours straight from Seattle to Boston...It was horrible.) Not too bad considering they got up at 3 am.

Then the good part comes. We go to a coffee shop at the Seattle food court waiting for our coffee. And there next to us is the lady on the airplane. She looks at us and promptly said, "Your children were awful". I was speechless. Patrick replied, "You thought that was bad? oh they usually are much worse." I asked her "do you have kids?". She hesitated and said Yes, although something about her reply made me not believe her. I said, "Wow. Way to spread the love." I was in total disbelief. If I had been quicker on my feet, I may have replied, "Happy Holidays to you, too!".

Flying with kids makes Patrick and I keep our sense of humor. Fortunately, as she walked off, Patrick and I were already starting to laugh about how horribly rude it was to say anything like that. Flying with kids is the pits. Really truly.

Zoya

Pictures are some Arizona ones that make me miss the sun.....

Missing the sunshine in Arizona...but excited to get home to Ski!!

Zoya

4 comments:

n said...

we were just in arizona this past week for thanksgiving.. people are so rude sometimes. Now that's the pits!
HAppy Holidays to you & your famBAM!

Ryan Cross said...

Oh my goodness, that lady sounds terrible - who would say that?! I think one of our worst rude passenger experiences was sitting behind a family with a small boy (maybe 1 1/2) - but it was mostly the mom who was obnoxious! I even noticed them when we were sitting in the terminal before we boarded the plane. The parents were reading the newspaper and completely ignoring their toddler. They had him on a leash, and if we wandered to far way they would yank him back without even looking up. The mom also just had a very loud voice that carried. As soon as we found our seats I couldn't believe we were right behind them. The kid screamed for a while at the beginning of the flight, but I know that happens. We eventually put our ear plugs in and fell asleep. We were completely sound asleep, eye masks on and everything, when the mom turned around in her seat and shook Ryan's arm to wake him up (which woke me up too). She said her son had dropped his toy and could Ryan look under his seat for it. We were a little groggy having just been woken up and it took us a while to figure out what she wanted from us. We looked around our feet, didn't see a toy, put our eye masks back on and tried to go back to sleep. A few minutes later she woke Ryan up AGAIN. He looked around again, and told her that he STILL didn't see her kid's toy. Then, her husband found the toy all the way on the other side of the row (no apology for waking us up, twice). That was the worst of it, but the parents were just generally loud - yelling to each other across their kid who was sitting in the middle for pretty much the entire flight. Thank goodness for good ear plugs!

Hope the rest of your trip was filled with nice travelers!

-Molly

Anonymous said...

Wow-- the nerve of some people. I am also shocked at how slow my reaction time is to hateful people as well. I guess when you are geared towards a happy life and seeing the good in things it is just not in your nature to lash back. At least you have the upper hand, a wonderful family, she may be traveling back to an empty home for her holiday!

Zoya, Patrick, Nora and Stuart said...

Patrick here. I agree with Ryan - abusive parents are WAY worse than loud kids. I remember when I was traveling alone in my 20's and was put with a mother, father and their baby who was crying. The father kept whacking at and screaming at the mother to get the baby to shut up. It was very disturbing, and this for a person who at that time in life did not like crying babies (or rather I am more tolerant now). Patrick