Daily Evil report. This one actually happened on my last airliner flight, but I didn't get around to noding it until now. Forgive my
trespass.
I recently had the unhappy luck to be flying eastbound out of Orange County airport(SNA/John Wayne) whilst returning to Boston. I made the further mistake of flying United. Upon reaching the airport, I was told that the plane was 1.5 hours late. I asked what that would do to my connection at Chicago O'Hare (ORD), knowing full well what the answer was.
After fiddling with his computer, the United counter guy (Larry, according to his tag) acknowledged that I was screwed since I'd miss the last connection to Boston by thirty minutes. However (kudos to Larry and United here) he did the right thing and found an American flight leaving in twenty minutes that connected through Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW). He promptly issued me a ticket, and told me that the flight was less than half full, which was better than the packed United flights. Thanks Larry!
Where's the Evil? I'm getting there. So I get on the plane and fly to DFW; the flight is, in fact fairly empty. In DFW, I am informed by American that they in fact have to connect me through DC/Reagan. What the fuck!?? Had I known this, I would've just gone up to LAX and gotten on the redeye. But I digress.
So I finally get on the plane, and there's maybe 40 people on a Boeing 757, so we got lotsa room. We all settle in to sleep. Then this poor woman ahead of me with two kids (an infant and a four-year-old) begins to lose control of the infant. Not her fault. The kids had obviously been travelling all day just like me, and while the four-year-old was dealing by becoming sulky, the infant was lustily squalling. She was frantically trying to get the kid quiet, because the noise was just...piercing.
Here's the evil. (Finally). So she and the four-year-old have to go to the bathroom, and she can't leave the baby, but the three of them just can't fit in a bathroom on a 757. She's looking around frantically. I wave to her and offer to hold the child. This, of course, gets me a suspicious look, so I reassure her by giving her all my ID, plus one of the stewardesses says she'll watch me, and I take the kid and hold him in the approved position and begin rocking him. He quiets some, but keeps bawling. She looks grateful, and runs off to the loo.
As soon as she was inside, I just waved at the stewardess. I didn't even have to speak. She brought me a Bacardi miniature, and I doused my finger in it with some juice and offered it to the infant. He nabbed my finger so fast I thought I was gonna lose it. Sucked all that right off, and I managed to get about six fingerloads of Bacardi rubbed onto his gums by the time she came back out. When she did, the evidence was all gone, everyone around me was looking studiously away whistling innocently, and the kid was sound asleep in my arms.
The look of sheer relief on her face was enough to make me alternately curse and bless myself for my effrontery with her child's health.
The kid snoozed soundly through DC and woke up on final approach to Logan, cooing softly and waving his hands.
EVIL RATING: 7.5. Contributing to the chemical dependency of an infant. Deceiving a mother in distress. Gawd, I hope that kid doesn't end up an alcoholic or I'd probably kill myself. Luckily I'll never know. Extra points for collusion with the whole airplane. 2.5 points subtracted because the kid seemed to come out of the whole thing better off.