Biggest babies on planes are grown-ups
The past few times I've been on a plane, I've had to endure the grating behavior of babies. It's without question the worst part of air travel today — and that's saying a lot in an era of baggage fees, poor on-time performance and terrorist treatment from the TSA.
They're inescapable. They're inconsolable. The crying starts before you even board the plane and lasts the entire flight ...
What, did you think I was talking about small children? Please. Kids aren't a problem. No, it's the increasing hostility and lack of empathy that comes from all those annoying, entitled, anti-child grown-ups I can't stand.
It's the last socially acceptable form of open harassment and discrimination in the United States. Push a stroller to an airport gate and the groans, eye rolling and head shaking start before a child can so much as coo. One time I heard a filter-free woman who blurted out, loud enough for anyone nearby to hear, "If I fly with another screaming child I'm going to kill myself." Too bad she couldn't have sharp objects in her carry-on!
As I've walked on planes with my kids at various ages, or followed young families down the main aisle, I've seen seated passengers in various stages of panic or prayer. One time, when my wife sat down with our lap-age daughter on a Southwest Airlines flight, the "gentleman" two seats over told her, "My wife doesn't like kids, and she'll be back from the bathroom in a minute."
(Pro tip to flying parents who get the unwarranted evil eye from idiots: Ask them if they think it's a problem that your child licked a dead monkey that morning.)
The Internet is awash in blog posts and articles embracing the ban-kids-from-planes prejudice. Kelly Rose Bradford made quite a name for herself this month by calling for child-free flights on the British TV show "This Morning," mainly because she's a mother herself. As a result, #childfreeflights is still trending on Twitter.
"I think there's an element of selfishness from parents who insist on not changing their lifestyle once they have their children," she griped, "because there are some things that just aren't practical."
Yeah, heaven forbid children see some of the world they'll inherit and connect with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.
I'd love to see major airlines create child-free flights for routes all over the country, if only to give the bellyaching set one more thing to complain about. You see, airlines would have to charge even more for such a perk because they'd be turning away and alienating so many customers.
What, you self-centered whiners thought you'd actually get something great out of an airline for free? If airlines could actually profit from your narcissism, don't you think they'd be doing it already, en masse?
Flying is an undignified yet underrated experience. You cram into uncomfortable seats with strangers and use a bathroom best suited for someone the size of a … child. And for enduring this oh so brief bit of inconvenience, you can fly from Las Vegas to New York for a few hundred dollars in just a few hours. Yeah, flying really stinks, doesn't it?
Besides, if you were a kid, you'd cry, too. Your lifetime share of the national debt is in six figures, you'll have to sell a kidney in Thailand to afford college and our economic policies are geared toward keeping you unemployed until the age of 37.
Guess who's going to pay for those Social Security and Medicare benefits you're counting on? The crying baby in seat 8B, that's who. Show her some respect.
My advice to the coddled: Attach a pacifier to your selfie stick. If you're going to act like a baby, you might as well pack like one.
Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is the Las Vegas Review-Journal's senior editorial writer. Follow him on Twitter: @Glenn_CookNV
