Photo via PEAKPX, u/illfuckineatyoutoo/Reddit
May 24, 2022, 1:26 pm
An incident on a plane in which two health issues clashed led an individual with type 1 diabetes to post about it on the “Am I The A–hole” forum on Reddit, asking if they were in the wrong. Due to OP’s diabetes, they have to eat regularly in order to keep their blood sugar stable and avoid a crash that can cause disorientation, unconsciousness, or death.
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On a cross-country flight, this person ended up sitting next to a family with a nine-year-old kid who has Prader–Willi syndrome, a genetic disorder that, in childhood, often causes constant feelings of hunger, which can lead to overeating. The child’s parents didn’t want the OP to eat in front of their son, who they said will sometimes throw tantrums when he can’t eat but doesn’t understand why.
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This created a situation in which it was likely impossible for everyone to be completely happy, but how the parents handled it didn’t help, even while OP did what they could to accommodate the kid.
“I got on the plane in the midst of issues with my diabetes and I needed to eat within two hours so I began snacking,” they wrote. “I immediately began receiving dirty looks from the parents and the mother said ‘can you not do that? Our son.’ so I put my food away and figured I’d wait until the flight attendant came around so I could buy food from her and eat at an acceptable time just to show some respect for their wishes.”
It’s weird enough to get dirty looks from strangers simply for having a snack, and it’s unclear if the parents gave any explanation at all for this. Either way, when the flight attendant came around, they decided to try and dictate who was allowed snacks for the whole row.
“So the flight attendant comes by with her beverages and snacks, I start to ask for a Coke and a snack box, but before I can finish the sentence the father says ‘nothing for this row, we’re all set here’ and she continues on.”
Not only is this rude, it exposes that the parents expected and tried to enforce total accommodation for their disabled child without thinking that someone else might have a condition that requires them to eat. Diabetes is a very common illness, but it didn’t seem to occur to them that making someone go hungry might be a problem.
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After the parents did explain about their son’s condition, at this point, angered by their rudeness, OP dismissed their request that they starve themself.
“I’m close to a tantrum myself at this point and so I look him in the eye and say ‘I do not care, fly private if you want to control your surroundings.’”
After OP ate, doing so quickly for the sake of the kid, the mother then leaned over and said “I feel a calling to educate you about my son’s disease,” which in this context, sounds like perhaps the most infuriating thing she could have said. OP went ahead and gave her a little education about their disease in exchange for the lecture.
“She keeps talking to me and explaining how I’d made her son feel and I said ‘listen lady, I don’t f—ing care, I’m going to handle my T1D the way I see fit and you’re going to handle your son the way you see fit. I’m not endangering myself because you don’t want to deal with a tantrum, if you want to control other people then you book all the seats in a row or you fucking fly private.”
It’s unclear if the parents knew about OP’s illness before this point, but either way, commenters widely felt that the couple were being presumptuous and rude, and have voted OP in the clear of being the a–hole in this case.
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*First Published: May 24, 2022, 1:26 pm
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