Photo by Michelle Spollen on Unsplash
It was Sunday, January 12, 2025. Chad and I were boarding a Delta flight headed from Atlanta to Hayden, CO. Our flight was originally scheduled to leave the day before but, thanks to a snow and ice storm in Atlanta, was cancelled and rebooked for the next day.
At the time of boarding, we had already been travelling for 2 days. Well, sort of.
The storm was due to arrive early morning on Friday the 10th, with expected icy roads across metro-Atlanta. Because of that, Chad and I contemplated whether we should book a hotel near the airport for Friday night, to increase our chances of flying out on Saturday (we would have normally made the drive the same day as our flight).
When Friday came and the road conditions started to deteriorate, we had a decision to make: 1) stay off the roads, wait until Saturday, and chance not being able to get to the airport at all, or 2) take our chances on safely getting to the airport, one day early.
We’re both cautious, so we didn’t make our decision lightly. There was a mental battle between our sense of self-preservation and our desire to go west. But when our driveway started to accumulate a sheet of ice, it was “now or never”.
Thankfully, we made it down the driveway and out of our neighborhood, which proved to be the biggest challenge. The main roads, on the other hand, were treated for ice and eerily empty, though we passed a handful of cars that had slid off the road earlier in the day.
We were relieved when we arrived at the hotel around noon, without incident, and went to sleep that night, with our flight scheduled as planned. Of course that changed Saturday morning, which meant we had to get used to hotel-life for another 24 hours. I’m not complaining, though. We had a warm place to stay with food and water.
Now, back to boarding the flight.
When Chad flies he always takes an aisle seat. That means if we’re flying together on a large plane, I’m automatically in the middle. Though I prefer sitting by the window so I can see out, it’s a small sacrifice to make in order to keep the peace. I’ve learned to be (mostly) comfortable regardless of where I’m sitting.
The introvert I am, though, I always hope for an empty seat on the other side of me so I don’t have to engage in small talk with a stranger, unless we’re both feeling chatty. But that’s rare.
So, I was a smidge grateful when I approached our seats and found a woman sitting by the window, with her head down and headset plugged in, watching something on her phone. We took our seats, stowed our carry-on bags, and buckled our seatbelts.
Finally, we were on our way.
A few minutes later, a baby started crying behind us. It sounded 3 or 4 rows back.
Now, I’m not the type of person who gets easily irritated by a crying baby on an airplane. It’s their only way to communicate something’s wrong. I get it.
But when the baby was still crying after several minutes, I wondered if he or she was going to cry for the entire flight. I’d never experienced that before, but imagined it might be a challenge for me. I was ready to be off the plane, already.
Suddenly, I heard another baby crying, right beside me.
I glanced at the screen belonging to the woman by the window, the screen on the back of the seat in front of her. Winona Ryder was shown standing in a shadowy room. It was the new release of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
But there was no baby on-screen.
Without turning my head, I looked at the woman through the corner of my eye. Her head was still down as she did something on her phone.
“Waaaah!” cried the baby behind us.
A few seconds later, “waaaah!” cried a baby beside me.
“Waaaah!” the baby behind us cried again.
A few seconds later, “waaaah!” cried a baby beside me.
The wails continued until they started to overlap. Dueling babies, if you will.
My eyes opened wider as I sat still in my seat, trying to conceal my confusion.
What is happening here?!
I turned my head toward Chad, who subtly leaned forward in his seat to assess the situation. Other passengers, boarding and standing in the aisle, looked our way when they noticed the echo of crying babies, too.
During the commotion, the woman next to me didn’t react. Not even a little. Her attention simply shifted from her phone, to the movie on the screen, and back again.
My thoughts were spinning.
Is this woman okay? Are we dealing with a mental-health situation, here? Is this a passive-aggressive reaction to a baby crying on a plane? How long is this going to go on? Am I being Punk’d?
As I tried to silence the alarm bells ringing in my brain and, after what felt like five long, painful minutes, the woman shifted in her seat.
The 2nd baby stopped crying.
This time, I turned my head. The woman’s hand was planted on her forehead.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, sheepishly.
I cracked a big smile and started to laugh, as realization first washed over her, then me: while her headset was plugged into Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, she forgot to mute her phone.
“I’m so embarrassed,” she said.
“It’s okay,” I said, “I’m just glad you’re okay because I wasn’t sure what was going on!” We laughed.
As it turned out, she had been a recording a Snapchat of the movie, which inadvertently recorded the sound of the baby crying behind us. And when it played back on her phone, it intermingled with the live cries.
Alison never heard the baby crying on-loop. Or if she did, she didn’t realize it was coming from her phone!
Now, you might be wondering how I knew her name was Alison.
Well, as soon as this happened, I decided it was a story worth writing. Life is comedic gold, sometimes.
And while Alison never told me her name, it was printed on her luggage tag, attached to the bag on the floor in front of her.
A good writer notices such things, right?
Thanks for the laughs, Alison!
