Comment: Hello, My Name Is Inigo Montoya... (Score 1) 826
I was in my seat on a plane, waiting to take off for NYC for a work event.
Had settled in and was reading my kindle when the Jet Blue stewardess tapped me on the shoulder. "Nice shirt," she said.
Thanks. It was a present from my brother.
"Are you coming back from a conference?"
Um... No. Flying out to one, in fact.
"Can you take it off?"
Uh... what? The shirt? Um... Of course I could. But... that'd be weird. I'm on a plane.
"That's from a movie, right?"
Yep.
"I thought so. But can you take that sticker off of it?"
No, it's not a sticker. It's silk-screened or something like that.
"Some customers feel threatened by it."
Uggggghhhhhh. Now it all makes sense.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/9f70/
So I say "Sure, no problem" and start to get up to get a spare shirt out of my carry on to change into.
"Sir, the fasten seatbelt is lit!"
Um, you just asked me to change my shirt.
"You'll have to wait until we're in the air"
Really? We hadn't even left the departure terminal.
Time passes. Noise-cancelling headphones on, asleep, a tap on the shoulder. We're in the air and the seatbelt light is off.
"You can change your shirt now"
Having had time to think about it prior to dozing off, I'd decided this whole thing was ridiculous. "To whom on this plane do you report?"
Had to repeat that a few times, and it was all downhill from there. I was nothing but polite and civil, whereas this raving stewardess was just about foaming at the mouth. On her side, it got pretty heated. Passengers around me were seemingly all incredulous; comments ranged from "this is ridiculous" to "it's not worth getting arrested over".
With a heavy heart, I relented and said I was willing to change my shirt. I remained seated, though- she was blocking me from getting up as she continued to berate me for my fashion sense.
Finally I pointed out that I couldn't get up as long as she was standing where she was. She moved, I got up to grab my bag from the overhead bin and, spare shirt in hand, headed toward the back of the plane to change in the bathroom. Whoa, nutcase was back there. Went to the restroom in the front of the plane instead.
And who should I see up there? A new stewardess- one that doesn't look angry or insane!
"Excuse me, may I trouble you for your opinion on something?"
She readily agreed, so I described the situation. As I recounted the insane hassling about the shirt, the threats, etc, her jaw dropped. Her face went pale. People seated within earshot said things like "People need a sense of humor" and "This is completely absurd". She said "Sir, this is completely not a problem. You can just go back and have a seat, there's no problem at all." And then the maniac sprinted up to us and freaked out again. Sane stewardess roared her down.
I went back to my seat and had the most uncomfortable flight of my life with the lunatic stewardess looming and glaring. Haven't flied JetBlue since and have in fact gone to great lengths to avoid flying at all.