Sometimes the stress of flying can have a major effect on your body, mind, and soul, and cause you to make some not so great decisions when reacting with others around you. What may seem normal at the time becomes one of life's major regrets after the dust settles and your normal, more rational self returns. But even though the cooler version of yourself returns, they are still left to deal with the wreckage left behind.
Here’s Where You Made Your Next Mistake
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After the man finally moved back to his original seat, things went smoothly, at least for a little while.
Sandra was willing to let things go, but soon the worm would turn. She explained that as they took off, the man pulled out his phone, an external battery pack, and a collection of documents that made it look like he was flying somewhere for a job interview of some sort. Sandra initially thought nothing of the man’s preparations, but she started to notice that the man slowly began putting his belongings on her daughter’s tray. This is something that Sandra was not okay with and the incident only further set her off.
This problem could have been remedied by one quick action on Sandra’s part. She could have simply moved to the middle seat, but as noted earlier, it doesn’t look like conflict resolution is a high priority for this over-stressed, under-rested mother of two. Please note that while what happens next could solely be blamed on the man next to Sandra’s daughter, Sandra’s unwillingness to give up her window seat is a major contributing factor here.
“There was some turbulence so his battery pack that he had placed on her tray slid into her seat. He reached for it and she said, ‘no, I’ll get it.’ His response: ‘Don’t touch my stuff.’ She was alarmed and leaned over and buried her head on my shoulder.”
The man had had enough and decided to call the flight attendant over, and when she got to their row, the man complained about the “out of control” kid and demanded to be moved. Despite his best efforts, the flight attendant turns down the man’s request and quickly walks away as the disgruntled passenger sulked in his seat.
But like Sandra, the man didn’t want this journey to end and decided to take this wild ride to the next level when he brought out one dirty and not so friendly weapon.
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The Final Straw
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As this wild and crazy flight continued, the man wouldn’t let things be and proceeded to pull out his tablet and started watching not so kid-friendly videos. Instead of putting in the headphones and pointing the screen towards his own face, the man decided it would be a tremendous idea to aim the screen towards Sandra’s young daughter, which further enraged the mother.
“He gets out his tablet and starts surfing softcore smut,” Sandra recalled.
But what’s smut to one person is nothing more than racy photos and videos to the next person, as is the case here. Sandra would later recall that while there was nothing graphic in the videos, she thought it was far from being appropriate for her daughter. But again, why didn’t Sandra simply change seats with her daughter to prevent this mess from spreading throughout the rest of the highly pressurized cabin? Well, we wouldn’t be here if that were the case. So we continue.
Sandra was the first person to ask the man to put away the garbage he was watching, but he refused to even listen to the mother’s complaints or concerns. Next, a guy in the seat across the aisle caught wind of the incident and skipped the whole asking part and told the man to put away the video. The guy refused to listen to reason but instead turned up the volume to act like he couldn’t hear the multiple complaints.
The flight attendant was notified once more of the intensifying incident and proceeded to tell the man to turn off the movie, and watched him as he put it back into his bag.
End of the story? Not so fast.
If we were dealing with rational people, we would be done, but we’re not dealing with normal, rational people here. We’re dealing with passengers packed into a plane with little to no personal space.
If you guessed that the story continued then you are right. We’re not quite done yet. We’re far from finished, and when we are, no one will be left unscathed.
END OF PART 2
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