A Lesson From A Sick Kid On A Plane? Yep.

If your child hasn't done this, you really haven't been that embarrassed.

I was on a flight from Newark, NJ to Phoenix, AZ. This flight is about 5 and 1/2 hours. There was a fair amount of families on the flight. One in particular had a child I'm guessing was somewhere between six months and one year old. I believe it was a boy from the clothes but that doesn't really matter. What does matter is the child was quite uncomfortable during this flight. It has having intermittent crying episodes that the mother was doing her best to manage.

We were most of the way the Phoenix. The mom was standing over her seat holding the child over her shoulder making a vain attempt to calm it down. I was about eight rows back. I didn't see the incident, but the damage was unavoidable.

The child projectile vomited, over the mother's seat, and all over the woman sitting in the row behind them.

This lady who was the victim walked past me with her carry-on bag to the bathroom to change her clothes. She was very calm, considering the extent of the "damage". Surprisingly no one on the plane had an adverse reaction to viewing (or smelling) the vomit. The flight crew cleaned up as best they could, even covering the seat with huge plastic bags. Since the flight was full, the victim had to sit on the bag covered seat the rest of he way.

I felt bad for the defiled passenger, and the mom. An incident like this is embarrassing for a parent. That said, I can say my children never did anything like that. Which makes all the times I said to my children (or my mom said to me when I was a child) "do you know how you are embarrassing me", really minor.

One clean airplane seat - $1000
Dry cleaning bill - $50
Perspective on embarrassing behavior - go calculate it yourself I'm not providing all the answers!