Viral Photo Proves Babies Are Far From The Most Annoying Things On A Plane

This tweet proves there are way worse things on a plane than annoying babies

To anyone who complains that babies on a plane are The Worst and thinks parents with young kids should stay locked in the house, it’s officially time to STFU. Because the actual most annoying thing that could possibly happen on a plane just went down, and there wasn’t a diaper in sight.

Dante Ramos, an op-ed columnist for the Boston Globe, was on a recent flight from Houston to Boston when the person sitting in front of him did something even ruder than reclining her seat. With what we can only hope was a The Little Mermaid inspired flip of the mane, a woman tossed her ponytail over the back of her seat, covering Ramos’ partner’s media screen and (we’re guessing) causing him to scan his in-flight drink closely for stray hairs.

Because we live in a world where “pics or it didn’t happen” is an actual way to call out a friend for lying and because having someone toss their hair into your already tiny airplane space is simply a sight one must see to believe, Ramos tweeted the image, captioned: “Congrats to the ponytailed young woman in seat 22B. You’ve invented a whole new way to be awful at 35,000 feet.” The tweet quickly went viral, because how could it not.

To be fair to Rapunzel, that is an impressive hank of hair. It’s shiny and thick and looks like it stepped out right off the set of a Pantene commercial. It’s the kind of hair that’s cool enough to hang out after school with Connie Britton’s hair. But no matter how toss-worthy your hair may be, it unequivocally does not belong draped over the back of your seat on a flight. The only person who would have been excited to have this happen to them would be a small child obsessed with learning how to braid hair who forgot to put their My Little Pony in their carry on.

Ramos was quick to mention that after a few minutes of can-you-fucking-believe-this looks at one another, he and his partner asked the owner of the ponytail parked over their seat moved her mane, and she did so without an issue. In her defense Ramos claims the young woman was engrossed in a game on her phone, and we’ve all had moments when we’ve lost ourselves to the siren call of a particularly tough level in Candy Crush, so it seems likely that Ponytail Gate was just a momentary lapse of self awareness.

Although the issue was quickly resolved, as a parent who flies often with her kids, seeing this tweet was reminder that even though my kids aren’t always perfect on flights, at least I’m doing what I can to not be a jerk to others on the plane. In this world where having your kid put their legs into the aisle can get your entire family kicked off a flight or allowing your child to put their feet on the seat in front of them can lead to threats of bodily violence it’s easy for parents to feel hyper scrutinized when flying with children. Dealing with a crying baby or an antsy toddler is no picnic for the parents, but as much as we want our kids to behave for our own peace of mind, usually we’re doing everything we can think of to try and quiet our kids down so they don’t disturb anyone else.

So the next time you’re flying with kids and anyone dares to give you the side eye when you’re clearly doing the best you can, don’t let it get to you. Or, just let your hair do the talking for you.