I have seen it all...

When you finish reading the story scroll back up and take a good hard look. 

Let's face it flying is not the glam-a-rama let's all dress up, don't forget the hat and gloves, drink martini's and smoke til we hack a lung, fun fest it used to be. We can all agree unless you are "fly like a G6" it sucks. Sometimes it sucks worse than other times...delays, weather and my favorite category other asshole passengers.

On our short little trip from Sydney to LAX over the holidays we had the pleasure of being seated in row 88. I am not sure what crime I have committed in my prior lives but it must have been a doozy to pull that card. Row 88 is the last row on the plane, and is conveniently located so close as to be almost inside the restrooms, and near to baby cry/lullaby/runaround area, bogan(think Aussie version of redneck) passenger booze fest(standing room only at that one) and flight attendant "meeting" area where they can do all of the whingeing throughout the flight. All of those things seem trivial compared to row 87.

In row 87 Qantas graciously seated 4 children, possibly French in nationality. The oldest was a 15 at the most, then 11, maybe 8 and no older than 5. They were very tall so age was hard to discern, all boys except the baby.  As siblings do, they fought, they yelled at each other, they argued, they shouted, the oldest was obviously told to be the boss and tried his hardest but who listens to their sibs, no one right? The little girl would cry when they fought, she cried she missed her Mom, she cried if she could not play a game. When she cried they punched her and she cried some more. Finally, 15 y.o told a flight attendant he needed his Mom, she said "I am sorry you can not go up there." My ears perked, "WTF???" All this time I thought they were with the large group in from of us in row 86(the bogan boozers). Flight attendant goes to get Mom, she comes down with Dad both looking like the biggest a A holes you have ever seen in kangaroo pajamas. She starts to yell at her teenager for not controlling her other children. I mean what a bother to have to come down right before her Ambien and gin and tonics kicked in. What if she had missed the caviar course!!! The nerve of these kids!!! She was a bit boozy and she really started losing her cool with him, her voice became louder and louder and then she slapped him in the face. If you have read the book, The Slap, this was my Slap. I could not take it anymore and I stood up and got right in her face and told her, "you are getting absolutely out of control. My Son just fell asleep and if you wake him up with your screaming and yelling it is not going to be good." That seemed to do it, she settled a bit but her daughter was howling. I was shaking I was so mad so I did not express my next thought well. I told the Mom, "they have been fighting for 6 hours." The Dad took this as a criticism of his children when really it was a criticism of the parents for having the audacity and nerve to think 4 kids alone for 15 hours in extremely close proximity would be a good idea. Dad says to me, "I'd like to see you 10 years down the road and two more kids." I was so mad I just ignored him but another passenger took up for me and yelled at the Dad, "that is the most irresponsible parenting I have ever seen." Not to be outdone my man took up for me and yelled, "YEAH."

They took the little girl up for an hour or so. Once they brought her back down and they did not materialize again until it was almost too late, the kids were almost off the flight by the time the parents came back to help them off the plane. To be clear they never came back to check if everything was going better than when their youngest was used as the family punching bag.

What do you think? Is this appropriate to leave 4 children unsupervised for 15 hours? Most states recommend children no younger than 12-14 be left at home alone, and even then the duration is set around 5 hours and most legal sites mention how it is not the best idea to leave even a very responsible child in charge of their sibs.

As a side note, on the way home the very large lady behind me asked me to put my seat up as she had no room. Yes, I would love to ride for 15 hours sitting at a 90' angle so you feel comfortable, no prob!

I have seen it all. And it is not pretty.