Mean Dutch Lady

I always thought Dutch people were like the Canadians of Europe…you know…extra nice and polite…Never a bad thing to say…Wear funny hats? Well, I was wrong. I ran into the biggest Dutch bitch on the plane back to Venice. I’ll lay the sequence of events out there for you. First of all, maybe I am ignorant because I didn’t know how to turn the power off on my iPod. What I have done for 2 years is press pause and leave my iPod alone, and it shuts off by itself after a minute of being idle. That’s how I do it. (Tri has since informed me that if you hold Play, it shuts off.)

OK, so I sit on the plane in the aisle seat next to a woman in the middle, and her husband in the window seat (he kinda looked like Conan O’Brien). I put on my iPod and started to nod off with my head on my hand and elbow on my knee. Well, I guess I sort of fell asleep since the flight attendant tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to shut off my electronics. Ok, fine, I have no problem with that. I press pause and set it on my lap.

At this point, Bitchess von Dutchingham reveals her true colors and states that I have to “shut that off.” I say that I know…this is how I turn it off. After a couple lines trying to convey to her that it will turn off automatically, she says “well give it to me, I’ll just take the batteries out.” To which I reply, “No you won’t.” “Well, the other option is to call the flight attendant again,” she says. Finally I tell her that I do not know how to turn it off and that this is how I always turn it off. She calls me a liar by stating “You can’t possibly expect me to believe that.” She continues to inform me that “There is a reason airplanes have this rule” and that I am “being rude and disrespecting everyone on the entire plane.”

I would like to remind my readers at this point, that yes I do have a bit of a temper at times, and yes I would have felt justified in calling this lady a bitch and requesting a seat change, but I did no such thing. I remained calm (mostly out of disbelief) and was very polite. I told her if she would wait another 30 seconds or so, the iPod would shut off automatically, and that I was not being disrespectful. An awkward silence ensued for about 5 seconds until she muttered something under her breath, and filed her magazine roughly into the seat back. I said “I’m sorry”? since I didn’t understand what she said. To which she replied “I was reading an article about American art, but now I’m too disgusted to finish it.”

This was completely unbelievable and offensive. She couldn’t finish an article on American art because I am an American?!? I didn’t even do anything wrong. Around this time, while holding the iPod in a direction so she could see that I wasn’t tampering with it…IT SHUT OFF AUTOMATICALLY. I held it closer to her and said, “There, it’s off. I’m sorry to upset you.”

This was my first experience with someone hating Americans for the sheer fact that I am an American. I can only assume that she pegged me as a teenage American tourist who came to Amsterdam to get fucked up and dump all over her town (she’s wrong about me being a teenager at least). I wanted to tell her that I travel full time and am actually quite respectful, but I decided not to question why she was so ill-tempered and bitchy so I didn’t have to talk to her again. As we took off, I saw her clutch her husband’s hand like it was the last donut at a 4H convention. I can only assume that she was deathly afraid to fly and thought that my iPod’s power being on would bring down the whole plane. Or maybe she was looking for a fight and pissed off at her punani husband (who just pathetically sat there looking out the window during this entire confrontation) and decided to take it out on me. Half way through the flight another woman came to give her some food (I guess she was in a group). Well, the bitchy Dutchwoman actually offered me some food, but I politely declined. I hope she felt bad for the way she acted; however never apologized. Skank.