I’m soaring across the vast expanse of the USA, from the western coast all the way to the eastern one. I’m on a rather large plane that’s fairly filled. I’m seated in economy class, casually relaxing in an aisle seat when I catch sight of a man across the aisle pulling out some sort of mysterious toolkit. The very moment I see it, my first thought flashes through, “How on earth did he manage to get that past the TSA?” And then, to my utter astonishment, he begins to dismantle his seat.
Quite perturbed by this sight, I rise to my feet and turn to him.
Me: “What are you doing?”
Passenger: “I pressed the ‘call stewardess’ button an hour ago, and she hasn’t shown up yet, so I’m going to take apart the passenger section until she arrives. Maybe that’ll make her hurry up.”
Deeply disturbed by his response, I start to walk down the aisle, looking for a steward. Perhaps it’s a bit of sexist thinking, but I had this feeling that I shouldn’t send a woman to deal with this man. I feel like a more assertive presence is needed.
The steward sprints with energy towards our area and confronts the man. An argument ensues, with the man claiming he’s been abusing the use of the ‘call stewardess’ button and they’ve stopped responding as a result. He insists that it’s bad customer service and that there’s nothing wrong with looking as long as he doesn’t touch anything. Eventually, the steward walks away, but the man promptly goes right back to disassembling, so I head off to fetch the steward once more.
The plane ends up making an unscheduled landing in a small, flyover county. Some burly officers escort the troublemaker off the plane. We then have to sit and wait while a maintenance crew boards the plane to put back together all that the man has taken apart. It’s a rather chaotic and frustrating situation.
Eventually, we finally reach our destination, but five hours late. It’s been a truly eventful journey, filled with unexpected drama and delays.”
