One dad went to Twitter to report that a flight attendant told his wife to clean up a mess their kids made on an airplane.
"The flight attendant @united just made my 22 week pregnant wife traveling with a 5 year old and 2 year old get on her hands and knees to pick up the popcorn mess by my youngest daughter. Are you kidding me?!?!" Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Anthony Bass tweeted April 16, alongside a photo of his children sitting in seats with popcorn on the floor beneath them.
Bass' tweet did not exactly garner support. The now-viral tweet has amassed more than 12,900 replies and more than 7,000 quote tweets with users weighing in on the situation.
"Genuinely curious who should clean up the mess your 2 year old made? As a parent of three kids I am the one responsible for them." one user wrote.
Another added, "UMMMM 22 weeks? Get over yourself. Pregnant women lift weights, run corporations, work in fields and take care of a lot of things. That small mess shouldn’t be an issue. Take like 2 mins. Unless of course we’re raising our kids to be entitled and we expect everyone to wait on us."
While the internet clearly has thoughts on the matter, Jacqueline Whitmore, etiquette expert and former flight attendant, tells TODAY.com that asking a passenger to get on their hands and knees to pick up popcorn, or any other debris, is unprofessional.
"It’s the flight attendant's job to come around occasionally to pick up trash and other debris. Anything that falls on the floor generally stays there until the plane has landed and the clean-up crew comes on board," Whitmore says.
Whitmore says that on regional jets the flight attendant is sometimes responsible for cleaning the plane.
"The operative word here is 'responsible'," she says. "In other words, it is not the passenger's responsibility to clean up every little thing that falls on the floor."
Because the airline provided the popcorn, according to a tweet reply from Bass, Whitmore says the flight attendant should not have said anything.
"This is something that the flight attendant or the cleaning crew could have easily handled without making a fuss," she says. "It would have taken just a few minutes and a sweeper to solve the issue."
But Whitmore has a message for passengers, too.
"I recommend that people pack their manners and offer to clean up after themselves the best they can whenever possible," she says. "This is both helpful and polite."
Bass tweeted April 17 thanking followers for their support and shared that United was "taking care of matters with the flight attendant internally." United did not return TODAY's request for comment.
