January 30, 2004

• While people do have a tendency to be morons on planes, the herd mentality of the passengers (any deviation from the norm must be dealt with severly and immediately!) can be frightening at times too. I guess it's easy for me to imagine myself getting pissed about something (oh, say my 15 minute connecting flight is delayed 2 hours) and then ending up with life imprisonment for talking back to a just-as-cranky stewardess.
• I'm on the guy's side. It isn't like he poured acid on the baby's face. I would have told the baby's parents to shut their kid up and/or splashed the water on their face. I've been on many flights with screaming babies. Including one where this kid screamed nonstop from NYC to Houston. A passenger turned around and yelled "shut that kid up!" and everyone on the plane clapped. I don't blame the babies. It is the parents.
• Ah, you can hear the Onion headline already... "Drunk American Acts Like Metaphor For America"... Nah, that's unfair. I actually totally sympathise; being trapped in a confined space with a screaming baby brings my inner psychopath worryingly close to the surface. Visions of beating the parents to death with a heavy parenting manual...oooh... Sorry, got to stop now. Nurse is coming with the happy pills.
• Birdherder: by that logic, the guy should have tossed water on the parents not the baby. Plane rides are rough for little kids (lord knows they're rough on adults). It hurts their ears, they don't understand what's going on. Parents are just as mortified if not more so when their child is uncomfortable in enclosed spaces as the people around them. (I'd link to a really great thread asking for advice on air travel with children on ask metafilter, but the archives seem to be down at the moment.) What the man did is sociopathic and completely unreasonable. Imagine how you'd react if it were your child or your sibling or yourself. People who condone that kind of behavior are often people don't actually have children and therefore don't realize all the challenges that come along with being the caretaker of a little individual.
• Gosh, I never knew that throwing water on a crying baby will make it stop crying! Off-topic: So will "Ronald Duffy" now be one of those names that will be forever flagged by airline security for extra security checks, or will the fact that he was a drunken boor in international airspace spare him from becoming another David Nelson?
• birdherder: You want to fly cheap, you have to live with kids on the flight. Don't want to deal with other humans being? Charter a flight. (I'm trying and failing to avoid finding this some sort of metaphor for international relations...)
• Kimberly - exactly! Planes are places where you're going to have to deal with public situations with elan. "Elan" doesn't include throwing water on an infant who doesn't understand that its discomfort has annoyed someone who thinks he's a minor god who shouldn't be disturbed by everyday life. I'm sure the parents were really unhappy about the disturbance to others, but couldn't find a way to quiet the baby. Anyone who has flown often has heard crying children. You just deal. The changes in pressure can be really painful for someone who can't chew gum or doesn't know how to swallow to lesson pressure. Other passengers can use earphones to listen to music selections or meditate to shut out the environment, or bring ear plugs with them if they're so delicate that they can't deal with a child in pain. It's only a few hours out of their lives. but probably seems like an eternity to the child and its parents. What are they supposed to do - suffocate the kid to keep the rest of the passengers happy? Airplanes are no less democratic than busses, they're just faster. Sorry about that.
• Any drunken pile of shit that throws water on MY child gets to take home his teeth in a fucking ziploc bag. And anyone who goddamned well *claps* when he does it had better apologize. Fast. Or they get a dose of the same. There is absolutely NO excuse for such behavior. Children are not little adults. They are children. I will do everything in my power to keep my child quiet on the plane. But my power - and any parent's power - has a limit when it comes to a small bundle of id. Nevertheless - if you fuck around IN ANY WAY with my child, I will ruin your day in as swift and painful a manner is is possible.
• /angry papa tiger mode. Sorry. I'm a father and, it's one of my vanities to imagine, something of a gentleman (albeit an occasionally colorfully-spoken one). I can't even conceive of thinking that throwing water on an *infant* would be an excusable response to anything. Anyone who would do so is, in my opinion, such a colossal turd as to beggar the description. Anyone who assaults a child, ANY child - and let's be honest, that's what it was - is shit in my book. There is no excuse for this.
• Some bloke in black with a tight white collar threw water over me when I was very young, but I'm just about over it now.
• Of course pouring water on a kid is wrong and I don't condone it. I travel a lot and am prepared for even the worst child outburst. As a matter of course, I do not use any violent course to settle issues on the plane. Perhaps the sarchasm tag should have been used. There are good parents like the ones commenting here. Sometimes people don't prepare for taking their kids on the planes. Most kids are well-behaved on planes. Then again there are little terrors that give the same type of outbursts they do on the ground.
• Well said, Fes. Well said.
• Clearly the jerk needed more to drink. Then he would have passed out and everything would have been fine. Phht. I fly occasionally, and little kids are par for the course. It's when the bloody adults can't handle it that it gets old.
• Thanks for the laugh, Wolof.
• Maybe it's just me, but I've never found crying babies to be nearly as irritating on a plane as in, say, a restaurant. Between the plane noise and the upholstery muffling the sound, they aren't very loud.
• This so reminds me of the classic final episode of M*A*S*H, where Hawkeye has the breakdown after watching the mother smother the crying baby. Having flown with young kids it's a nightmare trying to placate them for the journey, idiots like that guy just do not help.
• I always wear earplugs on flights, crying baby or no. The noise from the engines is very tiring. Part of the "Ahhh" feeling when you land is the engine noise finally relenting. I recommend them for everyone. With earplugs, a couple bloody marys', and a xanax I could fly with the plane full of toddlers during a diaper and milk shortage and still be fine.
• on a recent transatlantic flight, this german woman stood up and turned around to the crying baby behind her and yelled, "YOU MUST STOP CRYING NOW!" heh. i fly LOTS and the one thing i try to remember is: patience. nobody likes being cooped up in a tiny space for that long, especially babies and children. i just put on the headphones, crank up the movie soundtrack and pray the hours go by faster. i wish everyone would be a bit nicer to each other. that goes a long way.
• If they would just give us more leg room, everything would be fine. (You hear me United??)
• A quick tip for everybody - if flying from London to New York, don't choose Kuwait Air. That experience may have coloured my perceptions of being trapped in a confined space with screaming babies somewhat. (There were about forty of them. Screaming. For over seven hours. And there was no legroom at all. And the plane gave the distinct impression it was about to fall apart. And the in-flight entertainment consisted of three Arabic music channels, one channel of a man reciting the Qu'ran, and the film The Whole Nine Yards, starring Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry.) *shudders*
• I often fantasise about throwing glasses of water over Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry, while we recite the Qu'ran together in confined spaces for seven hours. Perhaps this airline you speak of could give me a taste of such forbidden pleasures?
• All these worlds are your, quidnunc. Except New Jersey. Don't bother landing there. And, as a bonus, Kuwait Air are very cheap. Surprisingly.
• Hmm. I liked The Whole Nine Yards... but I saw it in a theater full of people who were laughing their assess of at the time so that probably helped.
• Wait, wait: Let me get this straight: the drunken man was AMERICAN?? And the baby was BRAZILIAN?? OMG what are the odds?
• If you're flying New York to London, go British Airways. It seems to cost just the same as any other airline , but man, the service is good. Knocks the socks off Air Canada, while charging the same price. And I've only flown economy. I think they save money by buying really tacky fabric for the air hostess's dresses. Oh, and complaining about babies? Just buy some earplugs and grow up. I had a nine year old chattering and kicking me in the back for 7 hours on one trip, but I didn't care, because she was just really excited about flying for what sounded like the first time (and I doubt she knew that I could feel her feet through the seat). Now the teenager who stuck her foot up on my armrest on the way back - that's another story.
• dirigibleman: There's probably a degree of expectation at work there, as well. Airplanes are a shitty environment, even ones with really good seats, something faintly resembling legroom, and stuff to distract you. One expects to spend several hours (or, in my case 12 - 13) packed into the sardine can with all the other people, including kids. Restaurants are, unless they bill themselves a family restaurant, genreally expected to be a somewhat more civilised envrionment.
• I have to admit it - I've been one of those parents - the one with the screaming inconsolable baby on a long... long... long... flight. Believe me, I didn't want to listen to my child suffering any more than my fellow passengers did - less so, even, because her misery is my misery. Like most unpleasant public situations if you just try to be - well, adult about it, so much the better for everyone. It's not very pleasant for the parent & child involved, and we're usually doing all we can to fix it right up. (And I hope that drunk American doesn't have any kids and is getting help for his er, anger problem. What an asshat.)
• If you can choose to fly Malaysian, do it. Best prices, best service. British Airways, pfft. Nossing. Kreps. Same goes for Qantas.
• As a parent of four, I was always lucky on cross-country flights to have adorable kids that people would stop and coo over. Of course the fact that they were blonde and smiling non-stop helped.* Mostly kids that sleep through a flight or are quiet are not noticed; one howler EVERYONE knows about and doesn't forget. Stewardess BlueHorse says To you Monkeys with elan: please accept this bag containing 3 peanuts, a cute little bottle, and a pair of earplugs. To the drunk American gentleman: I'm sure you won't notice the crying baby if you stick this pack of #6 fishhooks up your rectum. disclaimer: They were wonderful to fly with, it was on the ground they were pure devil's spawn.
• Oh yes. Wolof, send my new keyboard Priority Mail ASAP please.