Q. My daughters and I were recently taking our seats on an aeroplane. From behind us came the recorded refrain ‘If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands’. Several further verses ensued. A toddler was watching something on his dad’s phone: he was too young for earphones. I turned and asked politely for the volume to be reduced or turned off. The dad replied, ‘Well, if you’d rather hear him screaming.’ I simply asked again that the volume be turned down, and it stopped shortly afterwards. No screaming ensued. But might there have been a better rejoinder to the father’s annoying response?
— A.C., London
A. Assuming a mask of sympathy you might have replied, ‘Oh poor you. How did that happen?’ Father: ‘How did what happen?’ You (still wearing sympathetic expression, which is key): ‘That your toddler got the upper hand?’ In this way you would have given him food for thought for the remainder of the flight.
Q.
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