Old Enough To Know Better
Well, when I was 13 I flew from Denver to Sydney solo. My flight out of Denver was 15 minutes late taking off. No big deal, as I could easily make my layover in San Francisco. Except when I disembarked, the gate attendant stopped me because there was a whole debate on whether or not I was flying in assisted or with an escort-in flight attendant. Again, easy problem to solve.
I try telling everybody that I have copies of all my paperwork saying I get to go solo. Every time I tried to speak up to tell them this, the adults would shush me or simply talk over me. They eventually held me until I missed my flight. So here I am stuck halfway across a continent, alone in a city I’ve never been to before. I finally convince them to just call my mom who takes nobody’s problems. They set me up for the night in a hotel room with a flight attendant.
I only have a backpack with some books and my Discman. No change of clothes, toothbrush, etc. We go eat their continental breakfast, and I grabbed a grapefruit half because everything else looked gross and grapefruit is awesome. The flight attendant asks me if I’m on a diet then looks at me like maybe I should be, even though I don’t think I was 100 pounds at the time.
My host had to get on a flight so we go back to the airport where I’m locked in the unaccompanied minors room. It had half a set of Jenga blocks, 11 pieces of a 12-piece puzzle, and two episodes of Degrassi playing on a loop. I was stuck there for 12 hours. Nobody told me I had three free meal tickets, so I didn’t eat all day. Then finally at 10 at night I get on my flight to Sydney. After 36 hours, I had a breakfast in-flight. All because everybody decided a 13-year-old girl had no right to self-advocate.
Story credit: Reddit / TheBrontosaurus