Tue 26 Dec 2006
The Not So Merry Part
Posted by Liza under Personal
Christmas was lovely, and I’ll blog about that too, but this is the part I need to get off my chest:
An Open Letter to the Occupants of Seats 10D and 10E, Delta Flight 699 from Milwaukee to Atlanta, December 25:
If any member of my family gets pneumonia in the next few days, I consider it entirely your fault. Please take my overprotective mother characteristics into account when this note descends into being petty and mean.
Adult daughter: when you are so sick that you cough, on average, every 12 seconds during a 1 hour and 46 minute flight, you are too sick to fly. Especially if approximately 25% of those coughs are the kind that sound like a goose honking and cause you to double over in pain and exhaustion.
Also, when you cough like that on an airplane, it really is unfair of you not to cover your mouth. The handkerchief you used to blow your nose would have worked quite well for that purpose also.
Finally, you may want to find a new hairstylist who specializes color — that blonde? Looked like actual Barbie hair.
Mom: I’ve sat behind calmer, less disruptive toddlers on airplanes, and I don’t think that martini helped your cough either. Also? You probably would have been warmer — less likely to get sick in the first place? — if your pants and shirt met, instead of being separated by your muffin top. In the immortal words of Whitney Houston, “crack is whack.”
The only reason I did not flip out completely on you people is because today my son is on day 3 of a 5 day antibiotic that Dr. Madelaine assured us would even kill pneumonia if whatever-he-got on the first plane trip turned out to be that. But really! Jill and I don’t need pneumonia either.
December 26th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
Come on, Liza. You know that’s a myth. People don’t get sick because they’re cold…they get sick by being exposed to germs.
People like that are why I hate flying. Well, pretty much all people are why I hate flying.
December 26th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Ok, I know, but I wanted to tie my petty mean comment to my real gripe about flying while seriously ill.
December 27th, 2006 at 1:04 am
Fair enough.
December 27th, 2006 at 11:04 am
they might not have been contagious. i often get lingering coughs that last way beyond when i’m actually sick, and they are aggravated when in dry air (like on an airplane). i like how you diagnose them and decide it’s pneumonia just because they are coughing.
i hate when anyone disperses their sick germs in public, but it’s a fact of life. unless you don’t go to work while sick, don’t take noah on airplanes while he’s sick, etc. i really don’t think you have any cause to be so spiteful. the complaint about covering one’s mouth is definitely appropriate, but i never thought i’d hear you pick apart a woman’s appearance like that. what’s wrong with barbie blonde hair? would it been ok for the woman to show her midriff if she was thin enough for you? all of a sudden you sound like anna wintour. being a mom doesn’t give you any more right to be mean than anyone else.
December 27th, 2006 at 11:36 am
You’re right, Jen, I don’t have any more right to be mean than anyone else. But I do have the right to vent, and I’m only human.
I don’t spew petty and mean all that often, but from time to time, I give in to the temptation. I’m not proud of that fact, but I’m not going to pretend to be a better person than I am. Honestly, I was so frustrated and irritated that if I could have thought of anything else mean to say, I would have said that too.
WRT whether or not they were contagious, we did hear the mom tell the flight attendant that they just got sick yesterday. These weren’t occasional, lingering coughs, they were the kind of coughing that makes you want to curl up in bed under the covers for a week.
And there’s nothing wrong with Barbie blonde, but a good colorist can keep the texture from looking like polyester filament.
December 27th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
I thought it was mean, but damn funny. But I’m mean too. The muffin top is a scourge on civilization, and must be hectored.
December 27th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
As someone who used to get a lingering, non-productive, non-contagious, bronchial cough every winter after the first Cold that would not go away until spring - this doesn’t sound like it. If the cough was Productive (i.e. something was actually coming up from the lungs) and accompanied by a nasal discharge, she was almost certainly contagious.
I found the rant amusing rather than annoying as she warned up front that she was going to be petty and mean. Plus of course the likelihood of this being seen by the deserving recipients is just about nil, so this was really just venting frustrations to her friends.
BTW: The cure for the lingering cough was that I started taking Cod Liver Oil every day. If you eat sufficient cold-water fish you might not have to take such extreme measures, but I despise seafood as a result of a Catholic upbringing.
(Before you say “Eeeww!” at the thought of a Table Spoon of Cod Liver Oil in the morning, if you get the Molecularly Distilled variety not only are the Mercury traces and PCBs removed but also the majority of the bad taste.) I haven’t gotten the cough since I started taking it in 2001 and haven’t used Sick Leave for any thing but Dental Appointments since then either.
December 28th, 2006 at 9:01 am
Heh! I blame too many childhood Friday night fish-fry experiences for my dislike of seafood too!
I’m going to look into this cod liver oil business. And Covert, it’s great to hear from you! I’m glad you were amused by the t-shirt.
December 28th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
I use the Nordic Naturals brand which I buy at Whole Foods. (I tried GNC Cod Liver Oil once and it is sludge in comparison.)
For info here is the product link from the manufacturer’s web page:
https://www.nordicnaturals.com/direct/prodsummary.asp?ID=41
December 28th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
You of course, as a brilliant attorney, know that the targets are not identifiable, except to themselves and maybe a Midwest ticket agent with waaaay too much free time. Plus, truth is always the first defense. In this case, troof.