Air travel often brings unexpected challenges, and one passenger, Zoey, recently shared an emotional experience from her flight from New York to Florida. When the attendants handed out mixed nuts, the woman seated next to her immediately declined, saying she was severely allergic. She began complaining to the crew that the airline should not have served nuts at all.

The attendant clarified that according to her medical form, she had listed only an ingestion allergy, not an airborne one. Still, the woman insisted the difference didn’t matter and that nuts should be banned completely. Her frustration soon shifted toward Zoey, as she turned and asked her not to eat her packet of nuts.

Zoey looked around and noticed that many passengers nearby already had open cups of nuts. She gently pointed out that her not eating them wouldn’t really change much. The woman, however, said it was about courtesy and asked again. Caught between empathy and practicality, Zoey made a compromise.

She explained that she needed to eat something with her medication but offered to move to the back of the plane to do so. After finishing, Zoey returned to her seat. The woman said nothing more, just stared ahead in silence, leaving Zoey to reflect on the tension between compassion for others and the need to care for her own health.