A Case of Terror in the Galley or Greed in the Attendant?

Who among us wouldn’t be terrorized at the sight of 70-year-old Robert Schuller, grapeless and scorned, suddenly in our face and demanding a full fruit plate? At 40,000 feet, there’s nowhere to run.

Cringing in my easy chair Wednesday night while watching United Airlines flight attendant Khaled Elabiad relive just such a trauma on “Larry King Live,” I marveled at the young man’s courage in telling his story. Overcoming his trauma to face a national television audience required the kind of steeliness the rest of us merely dream of. Hearing Elabiad describe the whiplash he got from Schuller’s shaking of him and then reading in the paper that he now fears entering airports because of what other passengers might do to him, well, it’s compelling stuff.

One hopes the young man is working on the book (“Terror in the Galley,” perhaps?). If not, he better hurry. The good reverend is a prolific author and is no doubt scribbling his own manuscript, which he likely will entitle, “I Said No Cheese, Dammit!”

Before that, though, there’s the little matter of Elabiad suing Schuller for $5 million.

If nothing else, we now know the price Elabiad puts on his own credibility.

Two questions for Elabiad might get to the heart of things:

* Assuming everything Elabiad says is true (and Schuller disputes virtually all of it), is it plausible that Schuller could cause whiplash and trauma from shaking him?

* Assuming that passenger Joe Dokes in coach had done exactly the same thing as Schuller, would Elabiad sue him?

I’m going to venture answers to my own questions. No, Schuller probably didn’t give Elabiad whiplash or traumatize him. Made him mad, probably. Turns out the preacher has a grating effect on some people.

As for question two, another “no.”

Can I be sure of my answers? No. I’m applying what I’ll loosely refer to as the “common-sense” rule of observation.

Elabiad’s lawsuit pains me, because he’s going to make Schuller look like an aggrieved victim. Until now, my main surprise from the airline incident has been the numerous anecdotes I’ve heard from people about the Rev. Schuller. Had it been one or two or even a handful, I would have dismissed them. Apparently, though, his inclination toward imperiousness, piques of anger and downright rudeness have stuck in many people’s memories. The correspondences were startling in their uniformity in ascribing such behavior to him, right down to the “Do you know who I am?” mantra that Elabiad’s fellow flight attendant said Schuller invoked on the plane.

Because he cultivates precisely the opposite Sunday morning image, I was hoping the reverend would get his comeuppance with this current flap. And he was, until Elabiad went into his version of the fake limp and ruined everything.

Sadly, one must conclude that it’s all about money. We’ve seen get-rich claims before, and this smells like the latest. In fact, it smells remarkably like an element of a current lawsuit against the Walt Disney Co.

An ex-Mouseketeer has taken a legitimate issue--she and family members were robbed in the Disneyland parking lot two years ago and she’s suing over lack of security--and added something ridiculous. The lawsuit alleges the woman’s grandchildren were further traumatized after the robbery because, while waiting backstage on the premises, they saw some Disney performers take off their fake heads. The lawsuit says the children were exposed to the reality that “the Disney characters were, in fact, make-believe.”

I fully understand that children may think Goofy and Pluto actually wear clothing and neckties. Maybe they think dogs are 5 feet tall and walk upright. But no matter how traumatized a child might become at seeing Goofy decapitate himself, would you as a parent have the gall to include it in a lawsuit?

For some people, the answer is yes.

Which brings us back to the terror in the galley. I opined from the start that two people accustomed to being in control butted heads on that flight. One man’s ministerial counseling became another man’s throttling.

If Elabiad believed Schuller touched him improperly, he did the right thing by notifying authorities. And Schuller did apologize in court in the misdemeanor assault case and agreed to pay a $1,100 fine.

That’s where things should have ended.

If Elabiad has a sore neck and is afraid of airports, I apologize for my sarcasm. But trust me, if he deserves $5 million, I deserve a Medal of Honor.

I ain’t gonna get the Medal of Honor, and he ain’t gonna get $5 million. And if he can’t honestly say he would have sued Joe Dokes from Hoboken, he has no high-ground claim to suing Robert Schuller.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com