Fly the Unfriendly Skies

I swore I’d ignore all things politics while I on vacation, but a quick blog post on the flight to the beach called for some attention.

I’m writing this from inside a place where we are under strict government control, the seat of an airplane. Sister Babe and Little Bob are sitting across the aisle from me on the 2 x 2 seater flight. I front of her is a mother and her two year old boy. In the row in front of me is a father and his two year old boy (no relation between the two). As we prepared for takeoff, the woman had her kid in her lap, as she had planned. Seatbelt over them, no problem. She had bought one seat but was lucky enough to have the seat next to her empty, so once we took off her kid would have some room too play.

The dad wasn’t so lucky. He made the mistake of paying for the seat next to him, so because he did so his boy had to be in the seat at takeoff. Yes, he was the same age as the kid across the aisle, and was clearly terrified to be in the seat and not in his father’s lap, and the flight attendants politely but firmly made it clear to the father that the plane would not take off with his son in his lap because the airline could get fined for it. OK, maybe not that polite – the flight attendants’ tone could have been more sympathetic, and they were talking about having to tell the pilot as we jockeyed into position for takeoff. My guess is they were scared of someone informing the FAA if they had allowed common sense to prevail and an inevitable firing that would result. The dad finally relented, and the boy suffered through takeoff. I even offered the dad to borrow my phone, since I never took off the Toddler Lock game from a few years ago. He declined, and his kid finally calmed down.

I won’t name the airline because I believe this could have happened on any airline (I’ll just say that it’s not United). But to all of the lefties out there who think that Single Payer is a good idea, how about having this level of unthinking bureaucracy applied to your health?

One funny end note, while walking back from the head I passed by one of the flight attendants sitting the last row. I spied what he was viewing on his tablet – job opportunities!

The week in Radical Leftism returns next week!

Brother Bob

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