I thought it was odd that I checked in at the American Airlines counter and got no assigned seating.  They said it wasn’t available but they would have it prior to boarding.  I dismissed it; surely my trip to New York wouldn’t start out with a bad flight.

When I got to my gate, I checked in again at the boarding counter.  The agent told me everything would be fine and just to hang out.  So I did.  And I did.  Oh, and then I waited some more.  Then they boarded.  And boarded some more.  Finally, the agent called my name and assigned me a seat…in the very last row.  Great.  Awesome.  Right by the bathroom.  He said “Oh and if some lady’s baby is sitting in your seat, tell her that’s your seat.  The baby has to sit on her lap.”  This didn’t have the words ‘happy ending’ written anywhere on it.

As I sat down, the woman was sitting with the baby boy (maybe 10-12 months old) bouncing on her lap…screaming….and crying.  The woman’s 12ish year old daughter sat in the other seat.  I took my seat and attempted to ignore the situation.  I thought if it were me traveling with one my girls as a baby, I’d hope people would have patience with me.

I checked the weather prior to lifting off and saw that NYC was having some rainy weather.  My coworker also texted me and said there were high winds in the area.  The plane took off about 20 minutes late; not exactly sure why though.  I had my doubts on the comfort of the flight with the screaming baby next to me, but after about 45 minutes in the air, he finally fell asleep.  I focused on my movie on the MacBook Pro and everything was fine.

Then, it happened. <queue suspense music> All at once, the plane dropped, hard.  I saw heads suddenly go up out of their seats and felt my whole body raise.  With that, the eminent seat belt light came on and the familiar radio voice came over the loud speaker suggesting we buckle up for a bumpy ride.

I’ve had my fair share of turbulent rides on the airplane, but this one takes the cake.  Over the next 20 minutes, it seemed like we went from plane to roller coaster.  My stomach is not particularly weak, however I soon found out that the 12ish year old girl next to me, was not as lucky.  She did her best to jump over me and dart into the bathroom.  Clearly, by the sounds I heard, she was giving birth to a gallon of toxic spew.  The flight attendant helped her out of the bathroom and back to her seat (since she wasn’t supposed to get up in the first place).  The attendant gave her a big plastic bag and said it would be better than the paper bag in the seat pocket.  I agreed since it was bigger.  A few minutes later, the woman in front of me was exhibiting the same signs as the young girl and requested one of the bigger plastic barf bags.  3 minutes after her, the woman 3 rows in front of me, jumped on the bandwagon for the puke parade.  I know what you’re thinking, “Wow, 3 people puking around you…that’s gross.  What did you do?”  Well, what could I do?  And then it happened…the baby’s head starting spinning and pea soup came shooting out, but not into a bag.  “Are we there yet!!??” crossed my mind but I chose restraint instead.  The plane landed a few minutes later.  I’m sure you wish there was more to this tale, but I’m happy to report there’s not.   Isn’t that enough?  You people are sick.