Lt. Wallaby and the iPod of Death

Here I sit almost 24 hours after I returned home on a flight between Detroit and South Bend, on my way home from a long week in NY.

I am still amazed at the treatment from the flight attendant, as were other passengers that witnessed the encounter that I am about to describe.  Let me state that I am still a devoted Delta Airlines passenger, but their response to the following encounter may impact that relationship.

Let me establish a couple of things first:

1) I travel a lot.  And when I travel, I try to always fly Delta.

2) I travel the same route a lot. SBN>DTW (or CVG)>LGA.

3) Having traveled this route for 5+ years, there are certain aspects that you pick up on:

a) there is a double ding that alerts the flight attendant that passengers can power up their electronics

b) this double ding typically occurs 15 minutes after wheels up

Another typical behavior for me is that I doze off during pre-flight and take off.  This was a typical trip.  I was out before the door shut.

I looked at my watch when I woke up; about 15 minutes from wheels up. another typical occurrence is that the double ding is often what wakes me up. Feeling that we had leveled off, I assumed this was the situation.  I powered up my iPod Touch.  Next thing I know, I have a hand crushing down on both my hands around the iPod and being shaken aggressively with 3-5 forceful jerks.  My reflex was to strike out at my seatmate, but my hands were bound.  I look up and it's the flight attendant!!  His  resemblance to Captain Kangaroo ended there.  He was Captain Kangaroo’s evil lesser known twin: Lt. Wallaby.  Lt. Wallaby then speaks to me in a tone that was just as unnecessary as the physical assault that just occurred. 

I was made to look and feel like a criminal for a simple oversight; as though I was trying to take a plane down by powering up my iPod.  He came at me with the attitude that he wanted a fight.  This infuriated me even more. If I were to have reacted in kind, I would have been cuffed and escorted off the plane by South Bend's finest. All I mustered up the courage to say back was "Touch me again" in a threatening tone.  He then proceeded to berate me on how conceited I was and that there were 50-something other people on the plane and how dare I feel so entitled to be above them. 

The man was out of line and, as I mention, came at me with an incredible attitude.  I had no interaction with the man before this instance and gave him no reason to believe that the powering up of my iPod was an act of defiance.  He gripped my hand and shook my arm with enough force that my hand is still sore today. I know it's not injured, but WOW, my opinion of this man as a representative of Delta sure is.

And oh yeah, the "double ding" happened as he was walking away from me.  I had just mentioned to my boss what a perfect travel experience we had been having before we got on that flight. Boy did that change quickly!