“You comfy, sweetheart?” I asked, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.

Ella nodded without looking up from the screen. “Can I have juice later?”

“Of course,” I smiled. “Just let me know when you’re thirsty.”

As I reached for my book, movement across the aisle caught my attention. A family of three was taking their seats—a couple with a boy around Ella’s age, already fidgeting and whining loudly.

“I’m bored!” the boy moaned, kicking the seat in front of him.

His mother tried to hush him. “We told you, no screens this trip. Be a good boy.”

The boy’s eyes locked onto Ella’s iPad. My gut told me this flight was about to get a lot longer.

About 20 minutes in, the mom leaned over with a tight smile. “Hi, I noticed your daughter’s iPad. We’ve decided to avoid screens for our son this vacation, and it’s upsetting him. Would you mind putting it away?”

I blinked, momentarily stunned by her boldness. “Excuse me?”

She repeated, “It’s not fair to him.”

I took a deep breath to keep my cool. “I’m sorry, but my daughter is using it to stay calm during the flight.”

Her smile vanished. “Wow, really? You’d rather ruin our trip than just give your daughter a break from her precious screen?”

“Look,” I replied, “she’s quietly minding her own business. Maybe your son could too if you’d brought him something to do.”

The woman huffed and glared, but I turned back to my book, determined to ignore her. But as the boy’s tantrums escalated, the dirty looks kept coming.

“I want that!” he shrieked, pointing at Ella’s iPad. His mother leaned in and muttered, “I know, sweetie. Some people are just selfish.”

Trying to tune out the chaos, I focused on the pages of my book, though the tension around us was hard to ignore. Ella, blissfully unaware, continued watching her show.

Then it happened. In one swift motion, the entitled mom reached across the aisle, knocking into Ella’s tray. Time seemed to slow as the iPad tumbled to the floor, the screen shattering on impact.

Ella’s heart-wrenching scream filled the cabin. “Mommy, my iPad!”

Entitled Mom gasped, feigning surprise. “Oh no! That was an accident. I’m so clumsy!”

But her smug expression told me it was anything but. “What is wrong with you?” I hissed.

She shrugged, her voice dripping with fake innocence. “Maybe it’s a sign your daughter needs less screen time.”

I was ready to give her a piece of my mind when a flight attendant appeared. Entitled Mom immediately kicked into her pity act. “It was just a terrible accident!”

The flight attendant offered a sympathetic look but said there wasn’t much that could be done mid-flight. I comforted Ella, but as karma would have it, the story wasn’t over.

With no  iPad to distract him, the boy’s tantrums reached new levels. He kicked the seat in front, pulled on the tray, and whined endlessly, his mother’s attempts to calm him down falling flat.

“Sweetie, please stop,” she pleaded.

“I’m bored! This is the worst trip ever!”

Meanwhile, Ella tugged at my sleeve, still upset. “Mommy, can you fix it?”

I hugged her tight. “We’ll have it fixed when we land. How about we read a book together instead?”

As I reached for her storybook, more chaos unfolded across the aisle. In a fit of frustration, the boy knocked over his mother’s coffee. The steaming liquid soaked her lap, spilling into her open handbag.

To make matters worse, her passport slid out and landed on the floor, right under her son’s foot. Before she could grab it, he stepped on it, grinding it into the coffee-soaked carpet.

Her expression was priceless—pure panic. She snatched it up, but the damage was done. The once-pristine passport now looked like a soggy piece of toast, with pages stuck together and the cover warped beyond repair.

The flight attendant returned and informed her that a damaged passport could cause serious trouble at customs, especially since they had a connecting flight to Paris. Entitled Mom’s panic intensified as she scrambled to fix the mess.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but feel a hint of satisfaction. Karma had done its work. As the plane began its descent, Ella was calm, flipping through her book, her earlier distress forgotten.

“Mommy, can we bake cupcakes when we get home?” she asked with a big smile.

“Of course, and maybe some cookies too,” I replied, grateful for the reminder that sometimes, the universe has a funny way of balancing things out.

As we walked off the plane, I glanced back one last time at the entitled mom, now frazzled and overwhelmed, clutching her ruined passport. Turns out, Ella’s iPad wasn’t the only thing that got broken on that flight.