Many years ago, I was flying home from Seattle to San Jose, California with my son, who, at the time was about 4, maybe 5 years old. For reasons I do not recall, he had thrown a tantrum while in the airport and cried for a good solid 20 minutes or so.

I was a frequent flyer at the time and so we had gotten upgraded to first class. He took the window seat and I had the aisle. This was on Alaska Airlines. We were still in the boarding phase at this point, when the flight attendant came by.

She saw his red eyes and she immediately became rude.

“He has pink eye,” she said.

“No,” I said, he was just crying, that’s all.”

She gave me a dismissive grunt.

“I have a little boy and pink eye was going around in his preschool. I don’t think you should be on this plane. I’m going to have to talk to the pilot.”

“No,” I said, “it’s really not. He really was just crying.”

Of course, my son was listening to the whole conversation and trying to shrink in his seat to avoid any more scrutiny.

“Well,” said the attendant, “I’m not going to be able to serve you, then.”

Now, as I noted, I was a frequent flyer. And one thing I learned over the years was that you do not want to engage in an argument with a flight attendant or any member of the flight staff for that matter. And, given my son was still upset over whatever he had been crying about and was now embarrassed, and that she had threatened to throw us off the flight, I saw no reasons to make his situation any worse.

And so I negotiated, as politely as I could, to have her serve his drink and snacks (this was just a 2 hour flight) to my tray table and that I would hand it to him.

We got off the flight and I took her name and immediately filed a complaint with Alaska Air. Not sure if it did any good, but I had to try.