Actor, comedian, and self-proclaimed “voicetramentalist,” Michael Winslow was just about everywhere in the ’80s. His incredible ability to make sound effects with his voice and uncanny beatboxing skills landed him the role of officer Larvell Jones in all seven “Police Academy” movies.
He also did voiceover work in “Gremlins” and appeared in Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs.”
But Winslow was forced to scale back his career in 1993 after the death of his first wife Belinda Church. As a single father, he had to stop appearing in films so he could spend more time with his children.
He continued to star in the occasional commercial, perform stand-up comedy, and make guest appearances, but he didn’t have the profile he once had.
Back in July of 2021, Winslow stepped back in the spotlight with a performance on “America’s Got Talent.” After some prodding from his son, he decided it would be the perfect venue to relaunch his career on television.
In the ’80s, he was known as “The Man of 10,000 Sound Effects,” but things have changed since then, he now claims to have “hundreds of thousands.”
“Now, after raising my two kids, I’m in a different phase. I think this is my time,” Winslow, 62, said on the episode. “And America’s Got Talent is the place for me to show the world I still have something to offer, I still have some sounds to make. There’s still room for a little more.”
Judge Simon Cowell was excited to see Winslow when he took the stage. “We know you!” Cowell exclaimed. “I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that you are here!”
Winslow then gave a stunning performance where he impersonated the chimes on an airplane, beatboxed to Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust,” and performed Jimi Hendrix’s version of “The Star Spangled Banner.” His performance was proof that after five decades in show business Winslow hasn’t lost a step and, in fact, he may be at his peak.
After his performance, Winslow won a standing ovation from the audience and four “gigantic yeses” from the panel.
“My life has changed again for the better, and I’ve gotten another blessing,” Winslow told Terry Crews after leaving the stage. America’s Got Talent is the place for me to show I still have something to offer. I’ve still got some sounds to make, and there’s still room for a little more.”
Winslow is a great reminder that sometimes when celebrities seem to fade away, it isn’t necessarily because they’re washed up or past their prime. They are humans with real challenges just like the rest of us and real-world events can affect their career trajectories. It’s great to see such a wonderful performer get another shot at the big time.
The Washington Commanders are having themselves a bit of a fire sale. After a 3-5 start, the Commanders have decided to unload some of their star defensive linemen on the rest of the league, acquiring some draft capital for next year in the process after investing heavily in that line recently.
Early on Tuesday, it was Montez Sweat who got moved to the Bears in a fairly surprising deal, given Chicago is struggling this season and didn’t figure to be buyers. For Sweat, who had 32 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, and 6.5 sacks, the Commanders got a second round pick from the Bears, which could be a very good one.
Sources: The #Bears and #Commanders are in agreement on a massive trade for star pass-rusher Montez Sweat to land in Chicago in exchange for a 2nd round pick. pic.twitter.com/lyZOSMt3YG
Once Sweat got dealt, other teams began sniffing around and there were rumblings former No. 2 overall pick Chase Young could also be on the move. Sure enough, word broke on Tuesday afternoon that Young was headed to the San Francisco 49ers for a third round pick, as the Niners look to beef up a defense that has struggled some in recent weeks.
Sources: Former No. 2 overall pick #Commanders DE Chase Young is being traded to the #49ers. Incredible. Likely a mid-round pick in 2024.
Young has 15 tackles and five sacks on the season as he finally seems healthy again, and he’ll now work opposite Nick Bosa in San Francisco, as the two former Ohio State Buckeyes will look to wreak havoc on opposing quarterbacks. When he’s been able to be on the field, Young’s shown flashes of that superstar potential, but injuries have derailed the last two years prior to this one. In San Francisco, he’ll have a chance to reestablish himself as a premier rusher on a contender, while the Commanders will be looking to reset some things once again in the nation’s capital with a pair of picks in next year’s draft.
Diddy recently reflected on rumors surrounding his relationship with Jennifer Lopez years back during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. While he denied certain things, it is true that the two used to date — making frequent headlines and red carpet appearances along the way.
Here’s what to know about Diddy and J. Lo’s past relationship.
The two originally began dating around 1999 and stayed together for a few years. In 2001, they appeared in matching outfits at the MTV Video Music Awards, and Diddy was also by her side when she wore her iconic green dress.
However, Diddy and J. Lo also had chaotic moments. She reportedly spent hours in jail after Diddy was involved in a fight — and things escalated into a club shooting. Both were arrested.
“I was in this relationship with Puff where I was totally crying, crazy, and going nuts, it really took my whole life in a tailspin,” Lopez told Vibe Magazine in 2003 (via InStyle) about how he was unfaithful repeatedly. “I never caught him… but I just knew. He’d say he was going to a club for a couple of hours and then never come back that night.”
The romantic-comedy, written by Nora Ephron and directed by Rob Reiner during his legendary run, is the Gilmore Girls of movies: peak fall vibes. It also has one of the most iconic scenes of any film released in the 1980s, when Sally (played by Meg Ryan) has a fake orgasm in front of Harry (Billy Crystal) in Katz’s Delicatessen. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
I (and Reiner’s mom) no longer want what she’s having, however, after The Daily Show swapped out Sally’s moans of fake pleasure with the indescribable grunts that have come out of Donald Trump’s mouth. I’m sorry in advance.
To mercifully get back to the original topic, Ryan’s son, The Boys star Jack Quaid, waited years before watching When Harry Met Sally for, um, obvious reasons. “I saw When Harry Met Sally for the first time recently,” he said in 2018. “Guys, when your mother has one of the most famous orgasm scenes of all time, you do not jump to the film, OK? I saw it because I was doing a rom-com, and that’s like the rom-com, and I watched it, and then afterwards I cried for so long, because I was so proud of her.” Quaid called his mom and told her “I’m so sorry I missed this movie.” She replied, “I’ve seen it like one time.”
That’s also the number of times I’ll ever watch “When Harry Met Donny.”
Next year, “Dance The Night” singer Dua Lipa is slated to make a starring cameo in the spy film Argylle. But, the musician’s avid fans are the true detectives. Today (October 31), Dua continued her cryptic album rollout with an update to previous video posts. According to rumors, the recording artist isn’t set to make her full musical return until 2024; she’s keeping her supporters on the edge of their seats with hints.
On her official X (formerly Twitter) account, Dua shared an extended teaser of her forthcoming single. Based on the coded message plastered at the end of the clip, the song appears to be titled “Houdini.”
Considering the mirrored effect applied to her past releases’ cover art on Apple Music, the apparent song name is the perfect fit. However, one of the entertainer’s top fan pages also offered another layer to the song’s title. The page pointed out the similarities in the forthcoming album’s imagery to Kate Bush’s The Dreaming, which the users emphasized also contains a record titled “Houdini.”
| Fans notice that the #DL3 imagery is similar to that of Kate Bush, particularly her album “The Dreaming”, which also features a track titled “Houdini” pic.twitter.com/Sirc5Y3Qp6
The page reposted a message Dua posted to her WhatsApp community page that could serve as another clue. “If you’re good enough, you’ll find a way. Love, 4-21-1,” read the note.
“I try to think about a perfect bite when I’m making a dish,” Sophie Dalah says. “It’s one thing to serve a steak… but you have to think about what’s acidic, what’s textural in the bite.”
Dalah thinks deeply about such matters. The private chef and founder of Sophie’s Table — an entertainment industry-beloved catering company — specializes in intimate family-style experiences and highly crafted cuisine, using food as a vessel for storytelling. For Dalah, it’s not enough to build a menu that follows simple parameters. Instead, she spins meals into conceptual journeys, each bursting with big ideas and yet never losing sight of deliciousness.
Recently, at Uproxx’s SOUND + VISION launch, Dalah referenced the event’s “Bourbon Tasting Library” by serving whipped “corn butter” — made with corn husks simmered in cream, strained, and churned by hand. It was an extraordinary level of effort just to underscore a connection with bourbon (also made with corn), but was in that simple (seeming) dish that Dalah revealed just how thoroughly she imagines all of the food she serves.
More than a month after the event (and with her cooking still hovering in our collective memories), we reached out to Dalah to talk about how her passion for food began, what drives her creativity in the kitchen, and why seasonal ingredients are your best culinary tool. She also provided a season-specific pickled carrots and tarragon recipe for you to make for the people in your life this fall.
So I come from a family of food people. We were all obsessed with food. My dad had a catering company in Australia, so I grew up sort of in that world a little bit, but I never would’ve imagined it was something that I was going to do professionally.
I was always obsessed with cooking. I was the kind of person who would come home on a Friday for Shabbat, I would make food for my entire family. I wanted to perfect xiaolongbao, and I wanted to make perfect dumplings for my family of seven. I just really loved it. I also had a food blog in school. It’s funny because even though I was really into it, it wasn’t ever something that I thought would be a career.
And then I moved to LA. I was out here acting, and I found myself cooking a lot and I just kept it up my entire life until one day I had an opportunity to cook for one family for a couple of months. And then from there, it was just word of mouth and I started cooking for multiple families and then it turned into events and then it’s just been growing and growing and building ever since.
You mentioned some of the dishes that you were experimenting with when you were younger. What cuisine do you think unlocked the possibilities of what cooking could be for you? What’s something that inspired you and deepened your love for food?
Well, my dad did this thing every day when we were kids, I still look back at it, it was one of my most loving memories. He would come home and make my entire family a huge bowl of Israeli salad. It was perfectly diced. I would come home from school and he’d be just sitting there and cutting Israeli salad. And it’s kind of the whole reason why I think I have great knife skills.
I’ve always wanted to make my Israeli salad the same as my dad’s. I always wanted to make it perfect like he did, and I would show him my job, I’d show him what I was doing. He’d be like, “No, cucumber needs to be smaller.” And it was just… I don’t know, I think I became really into cooking because I loved the ability to get better at something and to make something more perfect all the time. My whole family is into that.
You bring something to the table and we talk analytically about what it was and if it was good or what we could do differently next time. That’s how I got into food.
My dad was born in Baghdad but grew up in Israel and I really love cooking Middle Eastern flavors. When I was in school I wouldn’t eat regular toast in the morning, like toast, butter, and Vegemite. I would come downstairs and I would make myself green tea, and soba noodles every single morning, and I would ice them and everything.
I’m a peculiar person. I look back and I’m like, “Yeah, that was weird.”
Who makes the better Israeli salad now?
Definitely still my dad.
Would he agree?
Definitely. Or… I don’t know, he probably wouldn’t. He’d probably say “she does a good one, she does a good salad” but there’s something in his salad that makes it special.
So tell me about Sophie’s Table and the main ethos of your catering company.
Well, the main ethos for the catering company is that I like to bring beautiful food into people’s homes and I like to work with brands and figure out what it is that they’re doing, what they’re trying to achieve… A lot of these brands and these events are trying to launch a new product, and I love to find out what it is and bring that through the food as well. So trying to make the food as much of the experience that is tied to the brand as possible.
Then sometimes clients just want me to go to the market, see what looks good, and make something based off of that. I love working with people and figuring out what they want and making their hosting experience feel really special, ’cause I love hosting. For me, it comes so naturally.
I love doing it, and so I feel like I give people help and confidence to do that in their own homes or at their events.
Where does that storytelling aspect come from? Why is that an important component for you to latch onto these products and think about how to incorporate what you do into another brand?
It allows me to be creative because it puts me within parameters. It gives me great starting off points, and making sure that every event is different puts into perspective what I’m trying to do. I just think it allows for greater creativity and a more unique event and that’s why it’s cool to me.
I was looking into your website and I noticed you mentioned a lot about seasonal dishes. I saw that you think the best food is the food that’s in season.
Yes, absolutely.
I’m the same way. I’m always complaining to people when they’re buying strawberries off-season. It’s like, why are you even buying strawberries right now?
Oh my God! My mom does it all the time. It’s so frustrating. It’s so frustrating. I’m like, “Mom, why are there plums? It’s winter. This is Australia.” She’s like, “Oh, they brought the cherries in from America.” And I’m like, “Mom, that is so bad. Just wait for cherry season.”
You might not have a favorite but I wanted to ask, what’s your least favorite season when it comes to ingredients to work with?
Oh, interesting. What’s my least favorite? Oh, that’s so hard for me to answer. I look forward to the change. I actually get sad when seasons go. My dream in life is to have a fruit tree in my yard for each season so that while I might be sad about the loss of plums, I’ll be so excited about persimmons coming in, and so there’s always something that I’m so excited to see at the markets.
I’m going to mourn the loss of tomatoes, but persimmons are coming, so it’s a win-win.
Let me twist the question a little bit then. What’s a season that you find difficult to work with or find that other people think of it as difficult to accept?
I guess I have to say winter but… I feel like I truly don’t think any season is hard because we have cauliflower in winter. That’s a good vegetable. We’ve got persimmon in winter. Cabbages. I love cabbages. That’s one of my favorite vegetables. How could I say winter? I’m not going to say summer. Well, spring would be crazy.
You’re asking me to do the impossible.
I’m sorry.
No, that’s great. I think that reveals that there is no excuse for not trying to eat seasonally. How could you say one season is better than the other? It’s different and different is good.
Yes! There’s so much to look forward to in each season.
What does cooking seasonally like this teach you about cooking in general?
Well, personally, it just makes me feel really good to cook seasonally because I know not only am I doing the right thing for the environment, but it feels like what we’re supposed to have done for our bodies, and it teaches you to sort of do less.
When the vegetable is really in its prime and hasn’t been on a ship, or plane, for whatever it is, however, they commute vegetables… You go to the farmer’s market, you’re picking a vegetable that was probably either picked very early in the morning or the day before. It’s at its prime. You don’t need to do much to it.
Doing less with vegetables and making things simple is what it teaches you. A perfect peach really does not need much. It’s the best on its own.
And I think that kind of goes back to this idea of parameters, right?
Absolutely. It puts you on a path. It’s like, this is what I’ve got to work with — so what are we going to do? How are we going to do it? This tastes good like that. Yeah, exactly. That’s a good way of putting it.
You mentioned that you love hosting. You love feeding people, but what do you like to eat? When you’re indulging, what’s your go-to food?
Probably what we call “yum cha” in Australia, what you call dim sum.
That, and Japanese. I love going to Omakase, but yeah, I had to say that dim sum was maybe my number one “indulge day” food. Like, go sit and have just lots and lots of dim sum.
What do you love specifically about dim sum and Japanese food?
Well, what I love about dim sum is just how comforting it is, how warm it is — how it’s just a burst of flavor. It’s like every little bite is just so perfect and constructed so perfectly. It’s like a perfect food, in my opinion.
I would say Japanese food is similar. They’re the two things that I always really want to eat when I’m going out. They’re the two things that I can try and make and I can try and make, but nothing is going to be as good as getting it out elsewhere.
It’s interesting that you say that because dim sum has this comforting, warm quality and that high level of construction, and the same with an omakase tasting — high level of construction, high level of craft… that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re not making those specific foods, but what you are doing is also comforting as a caterer and host and yet it’s highly constructed. So I think it’s interesting how your preferences kind of reflect what you do.
Thank you. Thank you. That’s a huge compliment. I try and think about a perfect bite when I’m making a dish. I think about it, it’s one thing to serve a steak, but you have to think about what’s acidic in there? What’s textural in there? Considering what’s a great bite of food is super important to me.
LA has a pretty famous food scene, a lot of great food here. But I constantly hear about how most people are sleeping on the food of Australia. Since you’re from Australia and living in LA, where’s your favorite food scene? Who do you think is doing it better? Is there a “better?”
I don’t think that there’s a better, but I do think the general standard of… look, I’m probably going to get slaughtered for saying this, but I think the general standard in Australia is very high. I think you can go to pretty much any place and I think the level of excellence is the same. On one hand, if you’re going to a restaurant and if you’re trying to eat an excellent meal prepared by an extremely experienced chef, I think Australia and Los Angeles are probably on par with each other.
But the general standard of what’s available and the quality of ingredients that are kind of accessible to everyone in Australia is a little bit higher because I think food is really important to people in Australia. Cafe culture is huge. Coffee culture is huge. It’s just the lifestyle. But I mean, I think the level of restaurants and really good chefs I think is on par.
It is a good question because I think about that a lot, a lot of Australians will tell you “Oh my God, Australia just has so much better food. We just get it. We just know. Perfect toast, perfect salad.” Australians will say that to you and as someone who’s lived here for eight years, I’ll say right back, “No, you just don’t know really where to go.” It’s all about finding and knowing where the good food is here… but it’s more accessible, I would say, in Australia.
I want to talk a bit about what you did at the Sound + Vision launch, tell me about this corn butter that you made with the corn husk and how it connected to Michter’s bourbons.
That corn butter idea just stemmed from me staging at Birdie Gs. I was working with sous chef CJ Sullivan, and he made this ice cream that is maybe one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. It’s corn husk ice cream. He doesn’t use any corn in it. He just makes it from corn husks. When I was there, I made tomato leaf butter with them, and so I tasted the corn husk ice cream and was making the tomato butter with the tomato stems and I thought that it would be an interesting idea to make a corn butter.
Growing up, I danced. I was a dancer. I did it for seven hours a day on a Saturday and pretty much every second day during the week.
But the one thing I liked about it, was that there was a farmer’s market right across from my dance school. So every Saturday I’d spend my hour break in the farmer’s market, and I mean, who doesn’t love corn and butter? But every Saturday I was just eating giant corn all day. I practically drank corn on the cob smothered in butter. So I love corn butter, that’s my personal connection.
And it was so much fun making butter at Birdie Gs.
Does it take long to formulate and idea like that? How much time do you generally have between when a person hires you and when you’re developing this menu? Is it kind of like a rush to do it, or are you always thinking of ideas?
A client might give me an appropriate amount of time, but the problem is that I have multiple events and different menus every single week, and that’s really, really, really tough. I would love, so love, eventually to build my company to a place where I get to do some more R&R and get to think even more deeply about my ideas.
With the ideas that I have, I’ll try the dish one or two times, or maybe sometimes it’s like I’m just working on an element and I’ll work it until it’s perfect and then I have to construct it and then I have to alter it, cause sometimes with the events that I have with all of the different menus… It’s hard.
I know the restaurant industry must be so difficult, I don’t want to take away from that but it would be pretty incredible to recipe-develop a menu, and then execute that same menu every single night. To me, that sounds pretty incredible. You could get your food to such a perfect place. For me, every menu is so different. The sort of development that goes into it is not as extensive as it might be for a chef who’s working at a restaurant. And I would love to sort of change that, but I do the best with what I can and with my bandwidth.
1 pound young carrots, any color, trimmed, peeled
1 shallot, peeled, quartered
4 garlic cloves, peeled
2 red or green Thai chiles
2 sprigs tarragon
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
RECIPE PREPARATION
Pack carrots, shallot, garlic, chiles, tarragon, peppercorns, and coriander seeds in a large heatproof jar.
Bring vinegar, sugar, salt, and 2 cups water to a boil in a medium saucepan, whisking to dissolve sugar and salt.
Pour pickling liquid over carrots to cover. Let cool; cover and chill at least 24 hours.
DO AHEAD: Carrots can be pickled 5 days ahead. Keep chilled.
On the one hand, it’s consistent—the solutions to basic math problems are the same in every country in the world. On the other hand, there are multiple strategies to get to those solutions, and it seems like people are still coming up with new ones (much to the chagrin of parents whose kids need help with homework using methods they’ve never learned).
Math professor Howie Hua shares math strategies that make math easier on social media, and his videos are fascinating. Hua, who teaches math to future elementary school teachers at Fresno State, demonstrates all kinds of mental math tricks that feel like magic when you try them.
For instance, Hua has two videos showing how easy and quick it is to add multidigit numbers left to right instead of right to left, and it’s genuinely mind-blowing.
Check out how he explains why adding left to right is “underrated.”
u201cNew TikTok video: Adding left to right is underratedu201d
OK, seriously. That is way easier to do in your head. It’s basically putting the numbers into expanded form and adding them, which makes it easier to visualize.
Adding this way makes sense, but subtracting is a bit more complicated, right?
Wrong, apparently. Watch Hua work his math sorcery subtracting two and three-digit numbers.
Did you know you can subtract left to right? #math #mathematics #mathtok #maths #teachersoftiktok #teacher #mathtricks #mathtrick
Holy moly. That’s faster than the right-to-left, borrow-from-the-next-column method, isn’t it? And again, so much easier to visualize what’s actually happening, though I don’t know if I could fully do this in my head like I could with the left-to-right addition.
Hua recently shared another cool subtraction trick for problems with minuends that have a lot of zeroes. (The minuend is the first number in a subtraction problem. Don’t be too impressed. I had to look it up.)
So simple, so time-saving and so something I would never have figured out on my own.
These tips and tricks might come in handy for anyone, but they’re especially useful for kids who are having to do these kinds of math problems at school all the time. Even if they’re supposed to solve the problem with a different strategy, these methods can be a quick way to check their answers.
Anything that makes math easier, I say. You can watch Hua’s videos on TikTok, YouTube and Twitter.
There are some things that you just aren’t ready for or maybe at the time you thought you were ready but have now second guessed your choices. You know, going out on a Tuesday night might seem great until you’re downing an energy drink at your morning meeting hoping the room stops spinning in time for your presentation.
But there are times that having a little too much fun turns into a more…loud and permanent reminder of how that will be the last time you have fun like that for a while. One woman decided to share her very own cautionary tale on social media of how too much fun can turn into drooling broke best friends.
“All I want to say is, before y’all think about doing anything tonight, remember, y’all enjoy y’all life,” the woman says as she’s out of breath carrying two carseats complete with two chunky adorable babies.
She goes on to explain that parenting is ghetto because she not only has to carry two carseats but she has to carry everything else that comes with leaving the house with a baby, which is a lot. A parent of an infant can’t just pick up the child and walk out the door without packing up half the house. You have to have multiple changes of clothes, bibs, burp clothes, blankets, bottles, food, pacifiers, diapers, socks, hats, and more. If you’re pumping, you also have to add in a portable pump and storage bags. It’s. A. Lot.
This new, clearly exhausted mom is hoping to spare people who aren’t quite ready for the after effects of a fun night by showing how much fun she’s currently not having.
“No offense, I love y’all,” she says while looking down at the babies. “But like, y’all I used to be free. Now look at me.”
In a world where older generations often criticize younger people for being entitled, a video shared by Melissa Tylor shows that there are still young people out there who appreciate everything they have.
In a video seen over 34 million times, Melissa’s daughter, Jordan, is shown running out of her job to see a car her parents gave her as a gift. Well, the car is obviously used, but for Jordan, it’s new.
In the video, Jordan doesn’t scoff at getting a used car. She embraces it, flaws and all. “It’s so ugly I love it,” she says, looking inside the vehicle. After noticing her father admitting her reaction, she smiles back at him, “It’s so ugly I love it.”
The father apologizes for the car, telling her, “I’m sorry, baby,” to which she assures him, “I love it!”
The commenters on the video complimented the family on raising a child who was genuinely grateful for her gift. “A grateful child and a dad doing his best. Totally awesome guys,” one user wrote. “I love that she knows your first car should be ugly and to make memories in! So cute,” Kaykoontz added.
Other commenters felt a pang of nostalgia for their first cars. “First cars aren’t made to last, but her memories will,” Svn02 wrote.
In a comment on a follow-up video, Melissa shared her advice for raising grateful children. “Don’t spoil them. Make sure they know they have to work for things. Lots of love and also discipline,” Melissa said.
Traveling with preteens and teens is a breeze in comparison to traveling with little ones but as a parent you still want to sit near your kiddos in case they need you for anything. If you’ve traveled on an airline in the last several years, you know it’s much cheaper to chose the basic seats in the main cabin.
There’s nothing different about these particular seats other than the airline sort of randomly selects your seat and if you’re traveling alone, that’s really not a bad deal. The risk gets to be a little higher if you’re traveling with a party that you’d like to keep together – like your children. One mom took the risk and banked on a stranger accommodating…that’s not quite how it played out.
People sit in the wrong seats on planes all the time, usually because they read their ticket wrong or accidentally sit one row ahead. Takes no time to double check your ticket and move along, but when Tammy Nelson did a double take at her ticket after seeing the mom in her window seat, she realized she wasn’t mistakenly staring at the wrong row.
This mom boarded the plane with her older children and had taken it upon herself to sit in the same row as her children, essentially commandeering a stranger’s seat. Nelson assumed it was a mistake and informed the woman that the seat was in fact hers but the response she received was surprising.
“She said, ‘Oh, you want to sit here?’,” Nelson tells Good Morning America. “She said, ‘Oh, well I just thought I could switch with you because these are my kids.'”
That’s an interesting assumption when seats are assigned and many people, like Nelson, pay extra to have the seat they prefer. Now, there’s no telling if funds were tight and this was an unplanned trip for the mom and kids which caused her to buy the more budget friendly tickets or if she was simply being frugal and was banking on the kindness of a stranger.
Either way, Nelson specifically paid for a window seat due to motion sickness and though she paid extra, she was willing to sit in the other row if that seat was also a window seat. But it turns out, it was a middle seat.
Surely there’s someone out there that loves the middle seat. Maybe a cold natured person that enjoys the body heat of two strangers sitting uncomfortably close. Or perhaps someone that doesn’t mind accidentally sleeping on an unsuspecting passenger’s shoulder. But that person isn’t Nelson, so when the middle seat was offered in exchange for her bought and paid for window seat, she politely but sternly declined.
Having had only 90 minutes of sleep the night before and knowing I had to give a presentation to 500 people, I desperately needed some sleep, so I did not agree to switch seats. 🤷♀️ Before anyone comes after me… the kids looked like they were about 11 and 15 years old. And the mom was in arms-reach of both of them from the middle seat in the row behind us. The mom proceeded to complain for at least 15 minutes to the person next to her loud enough for me to hear. But the woman actually defended me – several times. It was so kind and I appreciated it so much because I was feeling really guilty. 🤦♀️ ##airplaneseat##seatswitching##airplanekarens
Her refusal to give in to the mom’s seemingly entitled request for Nelson’s seat has resulted in parents and child-fee people cheering her on after she posted the details on her TikTok page, MyCONQUERing. The video has over 3.4 million views.
“Nope. If it’s not an upgrade it’s a sacrifice,” a commenter writes.
“You did the RIGHT thing. Folks need to plan their travel together. Lack of planning on their part does not constitute an inconvenience on yours,” one person says.
“I have 3 kids and have sat in different rows when they were passed toddler age. I agree, book your flight earlier,” another writes.
“You were right. As a woman with 3 children, I always pay extra so we’re sat together,” another mom says.
Nelson is also a mom so she knows how important it is to sit next to kids on flights. But since airlines have made that a luxury, as the parent, you have to plan to pay extra or accept that you likely won’t be seated next to your children. Hopefully in the future, this unnamed mom is seated next to her children or pays extra to make sure it happens. In the meantime, people continue to support Nelson standing her ground.
This article originally appeared on 7.28.23
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