Do You Have Six Fingers on Your Right Hand?

Often times I am the one who feels like he's spent years in a cave becoming totally unaware of the twists and turns of popular culture. As it happens, I'm not the only one in this situation.

I would presume everyone has seen The Princess Bride, a semi-swashbuckling love story filmed in 1987 and constantly replayed on cable television. Most folks I know own a copy, and I watch at least part of it every time I happen to surf across it...just like I do when The Treasure of Sierra Madre comes on (for no other reason than to hear the line, "Badges? We don't have to show you any stinking badges."

A stewardess on Quantas Airlines seems to be similarly culturally deprived. Wynand Mullins was making a flight from Sydney to Auckland recently and was accosted by the stewardess and asked to remove his shirt and either replace it or turn it inside out (like we did in gym class!). His crime? Mullins was wearing a T-shirt with the photo noted above transcribed on it followed by the ever-so famous quote," Hello, my name in Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." When Mullins questioned the flight attendant why his shirt was a problem, she noted that some of the other passengers felt intimidated by the message.

Hello!!!!

Maybe there are more than just a few who haven't seen the movie, even though the passenger next to Mullins was laughing when he saw the shirt...or maybe it's just an Australian thing...or maybe those passengers possessed six fingers on their right hands and were justifiably nervous!

While one might think there is a freedom of speech issue here, there are two facts that need to be stressed:

1. Not everybody lives in America where freedom of speech is a given.

2. Airplanes are not considered to be public spaces. They are considered private spaces, and therefore, rules like dress codes may be enforced by the airline employees...which is what happened in this case. Similar incidents have occurred within the past year on domestic flights featuring both American Airlines and Delta Airlines.

Thus: one must be somewhat careful with regard to dress when considering airline travel...though the TSA didn't seem to have such restrictions when scanning us pre-flight.

...and nobody has any rules that I know about that refer to screaming babies...but they should!