A Sour Experience
Back in 2012, I was on a China Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Los Angeles. Being a long-haul flight and the fact that it is a major connector in the trans-Pacific route, the plane stopped at Taipei, Taiwan for a layover.
The flight was almost empty from Malaysia to Taiwan but when we re-boarded the plane, we were greeted by a stampede of Chinese citizens. Chaos ensued during the part where everyone is awkwardly trying to both walk through the narrow aisles AND load their bags in the overhead cabins.
This is an event that is usually a horrible experience on all flights. And that’s not even the worst part yet. I went to sleep and was greeted with a dropped-down tray with half my food missing. Okay, so the flight attendant laid out my food while I was sleeping.
As it turns out, the man next to me had helped himself to generous servings of my meal of chicken curry and rice. He even took the dinner roll with him. Keep in mind, the food was likely only served a few minutes earlier because the cart was only a few rows down my seat!
The flight attendant gave me a complimentary upgrade to Business class, profusely apologizing and gave me more food that wasn’t served in tin foil containers. I got seated next to a sleeping old man. Alrighty then, back to sleep I went.
OOOHHHFFFF! I woke up with a sharp pain in my stomach. The old man next to me had apparently woken up and took the liberty to jab me in the stomach with his walking stick. He started to angrily scold me as if I did something wrong and lecture me in a rapid torrent of Mandarin Chinese.
I could understand some of what he was saying so I mustered up what little mastery I had of the Chinese language to say “I’m not your son! I’m not your son!” He thought I was his son and was scolding me on why I didn’t wake him up or something like that.
Needless to say, I had a sour experience flying on that particular flight. Story credit: Reddit / (FreakyFruit)