Monday, April 22, 2013

An Air of Discontent


In the “I’m Number One and Nobody Else is Even in the Top 10 Department” comes this item:

A family of four – Mom, Pop and sons aged eight and four – were on a flight from Denver to Baltimore and all was just peachy keen, sunshine and lollipops.

That is, until the in-flight movie began.

The movie, a PG-13-rated film starring Morgan Freeman entitled, “Alex Cross,” somehow did not go over too well with mom and dad.

The duo, reportedly, were aghast at some of the film’s opening scenes, which presumably featured way too much of either of the two best things in movies, sex or violence, and asked the flight attendants to turn off the monitors showing the movie that were closest to their toddlers. The attendants responded by telling mom and pop that crew members had neither the authority nor the ability to turn off the movie.

Unfortunately, they also didn’t have the authority to tell these two nimrods to shut the hell up, sit down and look at the passing clouds.

Now, going on the assumption that mumsy and dadsy felt there was something objectionable in the film and that their two obviously pure and overly sheltered tots should not be subjected to it, the best option would have been for the two disgruntled parents to mumble to themselves, punch an armrest or two and begin diverting their kids’ attention from the film by, perhaps, giving them some attention.

Naturally, mom and dad decided to ignore Option A and instead morphed into the biggest pains in the ass since GEICO began making TV commercials.

Offended that their pleas to the flight attendants proved fruitless, the parents of the year went to the plane’s captain looking for satisfaction. Once more, they were rightfully ignored.

About an hour later, the remaining passengers, whose only transgression was boarding a plane with Mr. and Mrs. Pay Attention to Me, received an announcement that the flight was being diverted to Chicago.

Bottom line, the protective duo believed it was the airline’s duty to play parent, instead of performing that duty themselves.

How many times, as parents, do you find yourselves and your young children in delicate or uncomfortable situations? Now, how many of those times are you actually moved to take action?

Even though it might be the right thing to do, do you offer to disembowel the buffoon in a crowded room who just happened to step on your seven-year-old’s foot? Do you run through the Electronics Dept. at Sears, knocking over customers and screaming to have the display TVs turned off just because they’re showing Rambo wasting a few commies?

Chances are, unless you’re reading this from Cellblock Six, you’ve dealt with these situations by walking away, diverting your children’s attention and going about with your life.

That’s what Mom and Pop Perfection should have done.

Instead, a plane full of innocent travelers wound up adding a couple of extra hours of inconvenience to what should have been a by-the-numbers flight from one city to another. Mr. and Mrs. Listen to Me or Else were booked on a different flight.

In the aftermath, the airline did what one would expect in today’s politically correct world - vow to inspect their in-flight repertoire of films, while the two douche bags who created this tempest in a teapot groused about the plane’s captain abusing his power by diverting the flight.

Had these two chuckleheaded parents condescended to actually do something parental, about 40 or so airplane passengers would have had a peaceful, uneventful ride through the friendly skies instead of a bad, one-act fiasco while on their way to the wrong city.

 

 

 

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