Man asks if he's wrong to use UV light to recharge watch on plane.
It's hard to travel no matter what. When this man is conflicted about how to act on a flight, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for using a UV light to recharge my watch on a plane?'
Background: Parts of the dial on my watch are luminous so that they're visible in the dark. It's quite common among higher end timepieces and it's essential for seeing the time, as well as being a neat party trick and conversation starter. The material (Chromalight) recharges with UV light, so I carry a torch to recharge it.
The incident: I was on an overnight flight this week and when they dimmed the lights, I noticed the brightness was starting to fade. From experience, I knew it wasn't going to last the full flight, so I got out my UV torch as usual and started to recharge it.
That's when the woman next to me started freaking out, screeching about how it was too bright and distracting her from whatever trash movie she was watching.
It wasn't even that bright and focused on the dial, so I was surprised. I didn't want to escalate the situation so I turned it away and tried to ignore her.
This wasn't enough for her however, so she called the flight attendant. I explained what I was doing and why, and it ended with me creatively putting it into a bag to recharge it in a way that kept the light hidden.
Thankfully this silenced her for the rest of the flight and I managed to ignore her after that, other than mentioning the time quite loudly at one point so she knew I had recharged it.
I was thinking about the incident again today and wondered whether I should have held my ground? AITA?
Let's find out.
dorkette writes:
Plane monitors can show the time (intercontinental flights even show different time zones) so OP won’t even actually NEED his watch during the flight. Sounds like OP just wanted to show off the luminous feature. So yeah, YTA OP.
wonderingtheworld disagrees:
NTA. I travel internationally A LOT, including long-haul flights. There are so many drama queens & kings on these flights, especially overnight flights. (My last flight was 19.5 hours.)
Also keep in mind that every passenger on that fight has their own agenda…some NEED to sleep so they are rested for their critical presentation upon arrival. Some NEED to stay awake so they can easily adjust to the time zone in their arrival destination & movies are a great distraction to keep them awake.
I’m glad OP had compassion & was able to figure out a workable solution.
jwjulie says:
YTA… you get that her complaint wasn’t about stopping you doing what you wanted, but about the light in her face, right? ‘Thankfully putting it in a bag silenced her…’ - because you had stopped shining a light at her.
‘I mentioned loudly the time so she knew I’d recharged it’ - she doesn’t care. It wasn’t about your watch. It was about not being able to wind down ready for sleep on a night flight.