by Joe Thomas
How can you give a flight attendant anything less than a stellar review after dealing with a passenger like that? You don't. Doug received a perfect score. As I closed up his folder and placed it in my laptop bag, I reminded him to fill out an incident report once he was back in Miami.
He frowned, "I hate filling out incident reports."
I zipped up my laptop bag and stuffed it under the seat and smiled, "Don't we all."
Kids Are Assholes
Kids are assholes. I could end the chapter with those three words and move on to the next, but I feel the pressure to explain myself and provide a solid example of why I feel this way. While I’m at it, I might as well confess that I fully endorse abortions. I think abortions should be provided free to mothers well passed the child’s birth. I’m thinking up until they know their alphabet.
As a child, I was personally touched by an abortion. Irene had an abortion when I was two years old. Once I found out what an abortion was and how a simple vacuum hose impacted my life, I became ecstatic. You might say it was a surprise gift I didn’t have to wait until Christmas to open. And honestly, I would have hated sharing my toys with a sibling. Thankfully for me and you (the reader), she murdered my baby sister instead. I was simply the lucky fetus. I know for a fact the idea of terminating my life crossed her mind while I resided in her uterus. Whenever I did something childlike and stupid-like spilling milk on the counter or forgetting to flush the toilet-she’d retell the story about how when she worked for a grocery store she’d spend her lunch breaks smoking cigarettes and slamming heavy boxes of canned food against her pregnant belly. I doubt she was just checking to see if I’d answer. No worries. This solidifies how stubborn I truly am. I refused to allow her—or a few cases of canned fruit— the power to keep me from writing this book.
All jokes aside, when I became an adult I felt bad for Irene. I guarantee she regretted telling me about her abortion. And that she continued trying to kill me when I was the size of a lemon. Who tells their 10 year old son they had an unborn baby ripped from their womb? And that it was a little girl? And that it was the biggest mistake of their life? And that if she had her way she’d have had two abortions under her belt? Once I comprehended what that meant I figured she worked for a therapist who planned on having me on a sofa from the age of 10 until I was placed in a nursing home. Even though I pitied her, I managed to use the abortion against her whenever the chance presented itself.
“Joe. I hope you are brushing your teeth and getting ready for bed.”
“Yeah. I’m all done. You know who isn’t brushing their teeth and getting ready for bed? My baby sister. Why? Because you killed her.”
It makes sense why strangers stopped her in the grocery store and told her I resembled Damien Thorn from The Omen. Not only did I look like the Antichrist, I made jokes about dead fetuses.
No doubt you think I am a heathen for this confession. I probably am. Who jokes about abortions? Damien the Omen does, that’s who. And anyone who’s had their little soft fontanelles repeatedly bashed in by cans of fruit cocktail. I may jest about abortions but at least I’ve never had one. That’s got to be a testament to my character, right?
Is it better to joke about an abortion or have one? I knew someone in high school who had so many abortions she had a Planned Parenthood Club Card. Apparently, she thought having a dilation and curettage (D&C) after an abortion was easier than carrying condoms around in her purse. Who fucking knows… I’ll never understand teachers.
My hope for more abortions doesn’t vanish once I step onto the airplane-it intensifies. When I hear a toddler on an airplane screaming like a pterodactyl I wonder why its parents didn’t go the abort route. It must be easier than raising them and dealing with dirty diapers. It’s definitely cheaper. How much is an abortion? $500? That’s way easier on your wallet then paying for college. Can’t afford the abortion costs? No problem—DIY. An at home abortion can’t be that difficult. Maybe a little messy but nothing that some Clorox and Brawny can’t clean up.
My flight attendant manual explains step by step how to deliver a baby but there isn’t a word in there about how to abort a fetus (I’m pretty smart so I could figure it out). Completing a successful mid flight abortion is probably easier than getting most passengers to put their carry-on bags under the seat in front of them. What does one need for an abortion at 38,000 feet? Hot water, a wire hanger (sorry Joan Crawford, but sometimes ya need one), a few on board blankets, and a few shots of vodka. The vodka being for me. I need as much alcohol as I can get before I get close to a swollen vagina. Even though I have never been faced with the task of performing an abortion on a flight, I am prepared. I am an abortion flight attendant Boy Scout. I even carry a wire hanger in my tote bag in case I need to perform an emergency abortion on a flight.
“Hi. May I get you something to drink?”
“I’ll have water. I’m pregnant.”
“Oh you are…” Looking around to be sure nobody is listening, “Want to meet me in row 30? I’ve got a rusty hanger with your name on it.”
I have gotten way off track. Let me start over.
Kids are assholes. It is a fact. I am sure at one point in your life you have agreed that the kid sitting next to you was a complete asshole. Maybe it was at the grocery store, or Toys R Us, but most definitely on the airplane. Passengers become so furious over screaming kids on their flights they’d probably slip money into my apron pocket if I actually did conduct abortions in the back galley. What a great way to make tip money for the van drivers.
That’s the last of the abortion talk. I promise to speak to my therapist about all this at my next appointment.
As surprising as this may sound I do not hate children. I do not love them, either. Let’s just say I like kids enough not to drop them into a pit filled with hungry Catholic priests. However, dangling them upside down and naked over the edge for a few hours sounds entertaining. I love watching priests foam at the mouth.
On a late summer afternoon a few years ago, I found myself commuting from JFK to Orlando on a crowded and chaotic flight. What am I saying? I’ve already established that all Orlando flights are crowded and chaotic. The only place you will find more chaos is on a Martin Luther King Blvd after a shooting. With all the luggage, strollers, and families surrounding the gate in Orlando, I couldn’t help but fear that I’d be sitting on the jump seat the entire way home.
After waiting for what seemed like an hour, the gate agent called my name to the gate. I think she called my name. She could have been yelling out the lunch specials from the airport Panda Express. She was Asian so I honestly don’t know. When I approached the counter she handed me a boarding pass for seat 3F. This pleasantly surprised me because it was a window seat located in the front of the airplane. She scanned my boarding pass and I swiftly made my way down the jet bridge and onto the airplane.
I introduced myself to the flight attendant, took my perfect window seat, and started settling in for the flight. This was smoother than I expected. After I pushed my tote bag under the seat in front of me I looked up to notice a guy walking onto the airplane. He was young, handsome, and dressed in a dark blue polo and tight fitting jeans. He wore the kind of jeans that lay everything out for you like Google Maps. The best part was he stopped at my row. This Orlando flight was getting better by the second and now I had entertainment to occupy my time. Much better entertainment than my laptop and the article I was writing for my blog. He reached down to pick up his bag and hoisted it over his head with one quick swoop. Big dick. Big muscles. Slim waist. I hit the nonrev jackpot. Just as I started fantasizing about causing so much commotion that security might greet us when we landed, he looked at me, smiled, and said, “We’re sorry.”
What was he sorry for? The fact that he had a shirt on. And who’s we? Was he talking about the snake that he smuggled through security in his jeans? I hope he named it because if not, I did. Anaconda and I would be sexting pals by the end of the flight.
“H
i,“ I smiled, “Sorry about what?”
No sooner did the words escape my lips did his mini-me dart from around the corner and propel himself onto the middle seat. It startled me to the point that I yelled out and almost slapped the kid. I went from semi-hard to flaccid quicker than elbow macaroni in hot boiling water.
“Sit still, Jacob. Let daddy put your stuff away,” he softly said to his son who, if I had to guess, was around three years old. Why was this happening on my perfect flight? I’m no stranger to being cockblocked, but never has it been by someone whose balls hadn’t dropped yet. The possibility of the handsome father sitting in the middle seat and leaving Jacob to fend for himself on the aisle was a long shot but I refused to give up hope. I silently prayed for the solo father to buckle the little fucker into the aisle seat and sandwich himself between us.
That did not happen. First Reeta and now Jacob… I hate airplanes with a middle seat. Once the hot dad finished moving their bags around in the overhead bin he sat down in the aisle seat and began pulling toys out of another bag. Within seconds Jacob began jumping up and down on the seat like Tom Cruise. Someone needed to tell this asshole that this was an airplane and not a sofa at Harpo Studios. Did I look like Oprah? Nobody answer that. While he assaulted his seat like a Scientologist attacks an apostate he continued crying, "I want window."
I ignored him like I do the homeless in New York City. Was he howling at me or his father? I hoped it wasn’t at me. The only way I was moving out of this window seat was if it was down the emergency slide. Jacob was here to test my patience. It was obvious. Unfortunately for him, I’d exhausted all my patience during the van ride on the Van Wyck heading to JFK. This was the first time I ever wished that every passenger on the airplane was a raging Christian and that the rapture sucked them all up into the abyss. Or heaven. Wherever. It doesn’t matter as long as they were all off my flight. Well, except the pilots. Someone needed to fly me to safety. But who am I kidding? Pilots may be dogs but they aren’t going to heaven.
While passengers continued down the aisle I stared out the window wishing Jacob gone. If only he was small enough to be forced back into his mother’s womb; I’d gladly be first in line to start pushing. With his father paying no attention to him, he slipped his sneakers off and threw them on the floor. Thud. Thud. The kid was fast. Not as fast as a Las Vegas hooker picking up a John on a 38 minute flight, but pretty damn close. I didn’t trust him or his pathetic father. The burning sexual desire I had for him was lost due to his bad parenting skills, and the outline in his jeans—that would make Ron Jeremy jealous—didn’t seem to matter anymore. He had the brain of a goldfish. The mastermind and brains behind the entire operation belonged to a three year old. I kept my left eye on him and his father and my right out the window. Without looking away from his cell phone, the dad immediately picked up the shoes and handed them back to Jacob.
“Put your shoes back on. Please be a good boy for daddy.” He said while staring at his phone. The shoes were back on the floor before he finished the sentence.
I had to hand it to this kid; he had his dad wrapped around his peanut butter sticky fingers. Jacob needed medication, something strong, like Propofol. If I had a moment alone with him I would have crushed up one of my Vicodin tablets and sprinkled it into his sippy cup. I’m glad I didn’t, I’d surely be popping them like tic tacs before the flight was over. Jacob was a F4 tornado that could easily sweep us all off to Oz. One look at him and The Wicked Witch of the West would have doused herself in water just to escape. I turned my head looking over at him and noticed cracker crumbs all over the place. Not just the floor but his seat and the edge of my seat. The sad part was he hadn’t eaten. He hadn’t put anything in his mouth except for his nasty brat fingers. Do kids just exfoliate crumbs from their dirty little bodies?
It didn’t stop with the crumbs and the screaming. His dad was pulling out every toy from their magical tote bag all while staring at his cell phone. After pulling out a few coloring books, alphabet blocks, and a G.I. Joe figure, a red stuffed lobster was yanked out and placed on the seat.
When he saw the lobster his breathing increased. So did his bouncing. Snotty mucus flew out of his nose and landed on the already stained carpet. Was that a toy orgasm? Not the same toy orgasm that I’m used to, but close enough. He orgasmed over a red fucking lobster. Are you kidding me? And I witnessed the entire thing at my seat. Well, better me than Jared Fogle. Jacob grabbed the red lobster and decided it was time to involve me in his chaotic life. Like him being on the same airplane next to me wasn’t enough. With his little fat arm he flailed that red fucking lobster around his head and in front of my television interrupting my Will & Grace marathon on TBS. The two of them must have thought I enjoyed sitting in my comfortable airplane seat, with my earbuds packed into my ears, staring at the television with no desire to actually watch the program on the screen in front of me. I imagined turning to the two of them and blurting out, “I’d much rather watch your kid play airplane with his fake dirty lobster doll than watch Karen Walker mix amphetamines with a gin martini and insult Grace’s small tits.”
I really needed that martini.
Just to be clear, all this shit occurred before we took off.
After take off the altitude made his crazy intensify. On his back, with his feet against the tray table, he kicked and stomped the seat in front of him like the Tazmanian Devil. I patiently waited for the passenger seated directly in front of him to confront the dad about his kid’s behavior, but of course he stayed silent. People never speak up when there’s good cause. I had damn good cause to say something but I was flying standby, which meant I couldn’t indulge in any confrontations with other passengers. Jacob thrashed around like a seizure patient. I didn’t know whether to hold his tongue down with a spoon or just shove that fucking lobster down his throat.
Father of the Year barely said anything. When he did speak all he said was, "Honey, don't do that.” That's it. That’s all he managed to say throughout most of the flight. He could have recorded those exact words, left the recorder on the aisle seat, and disappeared. Where’s the parenting in that? Other than those four words, he remained stationary like he was recovering from spinal surgery. I fought the urge to lean forward, tap his shoulder, and tell him to man up and control his child. Why are parents afraid to beat their kids in public? There’s nothing wrong with threatening and beating the shit out of your kids if they’re acting like assholes. Don’t want to beat them in public? Fine. Forget doing it in public. Take them by the arm, go into the airplane lavatory, and don’t come out until they are begging for forgiveness. Personally, I’m all about threatening. If I had kids, they’d think their father was Tony Soprano. A little discipline helps these asshole kids not grow up into asshole adults. We have enough asshole adults. Members of the KKK. The entire Westboro Baptist Church congregation. Donald Trump supporters. Trust me, we have enough assholes to last us until we colonize Mars. We don’t need any more. As a child, if I even glanced at Irene cross-eyed while at the grocery store, she dropped whatever she was doing, dragged me to the car, and spanked my ass until you could fry an egg on it.
This little rugrat thrashed around the seat for the entire two hour flight. How he didn’t run out of energy—or just die—was a mystery. Why wasn’t the father more alert to his child’s needs? Jacob required more attention than a brand new puppy. No wonder his mother was nowhere to be found. I’d have abandoned the two of them too. If Jacob continued with that behavior he’d soon find himself motherless, fatherless, and selling his ass for crack in West Hollywood. He was a psycho who frightened the likes of Norman Bates. I will admit that I know nothing about raising a child. What I do know is that I had a real life Chucky doll occupying the seat next to me.
As our flight approached Orlando to land, he was literally hanging all over me trying to look out the window. The thought never crossed my mind to switch seats with him. Obviously the nice thing to do. Unfortunately, I’m not that nice. I watched televisi
on wishing him to sit down and stop kicking my leg. After the kind of assault my left leg had endured I’d need a wheelchair to take me off the flight. He walloped against me like I was filled with candy and this was his birthday party.
“I want window! I want wiiiiiinnnnndddddooooooooooow!”
I closed the shade. Fuck you, Jacob. If I can’t have peace and quiet you can’t have the window. You can’t even look out and see the clouds. Dick.
I looked over at the father at least 10 times throughout the flight and he never made eye contact with me. Not once. I thought about nudging my left elbow into Jacob’s throat to calm him down but I’d no doubt press too hard. I am sure of it. That kid deserved to be locked up in a basement until his 18th birthday. After all these years I finally sympathized with the mother from Flowers In The Attic. It should have been called Assholes In The Attic. As I sat there wishing for him to hurry up and become an adult, or even better—just fall the fuck asleep—I had a memory of working a trip with an incredible flight attendant.
I was scheduled for a three day trip and had the pleasure of working with Regal, a fantastic woman who always laughed at my jokes. Even the not-so-funny ones. I’ve learned when a person laughs at your jokes, they’re a keeper. You make them your friend. Or your spouse. That answers the age old question of why ugly, fat comedians have drop dead gorgeous wives-it’s all about the laughter. Regal reiterated how wonderful and fabulous I was each time she saw me. That made me like her even more.
The two of us had been flying all day. We were exhausted and counting down the minutes until our flight from Nashville to Orlando landed. It was an Orlando flight so it was jam-packed with kids. So many it seemed that parents were bringing them on the airplane as carry-on luggage. Our trip occurred on a smaller airplane with no third flight attendant. In the middle of beverage service, I walked down the aisle with two bottles of wine for a passenger in my section when I became distracted by a female voice projecting over the back of her seat to the row behind her. Her voice echoed the sound of someone who had just finished off a carton of Camel cigarettes; I immediately questioned why she was on an Orlando flight and not on her way to West Palm Beach. There had to be a breathing treatment awaiting her in Boca. I stopped at the row to see what the fuss was about. I am nosey, and on my airplane I am the only bitch who yells. With a disgusted look on her face and a hairdo that most likely cost $4.99 at Supercuts, Bertha turned around in her seat and verbally attacked the male passenger traveling with his wife and small child.