She let her child hit me in the back – what I did made her freeze in place.
I’m not one to cause trouble, especially on a plane. I like silence. A little reading, a nap, getting to my destination without talking to anyone.
But on this flight something tested my nerves… or rather, someone.
There was a little boy sitting behind me, maybe 6 or 7, who kept kicking me on the chair. Softly at first… then with the regularity of an ominous metronome. BAAAAM. BAAAAM. BAAAAM. Like a drop of water falling, only here it was a foot on my shoulder blades.
I turned around for the first time. A smile stretched to the limit. A diplomatic look. No effect. The mother sitting next to him seemed in another world, too absorbed in her phone. She seemed to be thinking, “It’s just a child.”
Yes… but this is not a trampoline, madam.
I held on. Ten minutes. Then twenty. Then thirty.
When I felt like my patience was running out, I did something I don’t usually do.
I stood up slowly, calmly. I packed my bag, went up to the flight attendant and asked if I could talk to the passenger sitting behind me.
I returned to her place, leaned over with a smile as calm as it was firm, and said:
– Hello. I propose a small switch. Just for a few minutes. That way you can experience exactly what I feel from the very takeoff, every time your son hits me in the back.
Silence.
She looked at me. Her mouth was slightly open. The boy froze, too. The stewardess did not intervene. I think that one sentence said it all.
She didn’t move. But guess what happened?
The blows stopped. Instantly. As if by magic.
And I was finally able to lean back in my chair… without wondering if I was on a plane or in a game room.
