Every once in a while, when the news gets slow, they bring
out the stories about toddlers getting kicked off planes. Everyone just loves
to hear about a 3 year old getting the boot on a southwest flight.
Before motherhood, if you saw me on a plane, you could tell
I was hostile territory for you to sit next to with your kid. Everything about
me screamed, “Keep your kid away from me. I’m not approachable. Back off.”
Generally my anti-kid vibe reverberated well, and parents stayed away.
Then I had my own child, and my tune changed for good.
Kids are adorable on planes!
Please, sit next to me and drown out my own child’s whining. I really
hope your kid is the one to have a temper tantrum, and it’s bigger than the one
mine is having. Your kid is crying? That is totally fine, you can sit near me
so that no one notices that MY child is crying too. It’s a symbiotic
relationship; we will just be loud and obnoxious together. They can’t kick all
of us off the plane; I’ve never heard a news story where that has happened.
Because I am the former primo hater of children on planes, I
can spot other haters with great ease. On a recent plane trip, I found one. He
was traveling alone. He was 30ish, very tall and of a large gooney build. He
was obviously traveling for work, no luggage. He had the tell tale layers of
protection around him, put in place to ward of annoying conversationalists and
of course, parents of small children. The book, the iPod, the magazines, today’s
newspaper folded out over three seats, the laptop, the nasty stare and the overtly
territorial placement of his size 13 feet all screamed, “Stay away from me, I’m
extremely anti-social.”
As karma would have it, the last seats were the ones behind
him and even though I thought better of it, we took them. Bre thankfully agreed with the whole mandatory
seatbelt situation, and we took off.
It all began with a long winded sigh of exasperation. I saw
his buzzed head fling backwards several times giving me the stare of death.
Obviously he didn’t like the portable DVD of Caillou blaring on the fold out
tray behind him. The tips of his ears grew redder, and agitation turned to full
on rage when Bre started to kick his seat during exciting moments of her show. As
I calmed her down, I heard his not so muffled complaints about children on
planes to the apathetic passenger next to him.
I began envisioning the next day’s news, where Breanna and I
are being interviewed by Sam Champion about why the crew and passengers of Flight
1134 turned against us, and made an emergency landing just to kick us out.
Not much longer after that, did Breanna decide to have her
half-way-through-the-plane-ride-temper-tantrum. I anxiously fumbled for my
carry on. My plane ride carry on is an array of delights. Its contents are the
preschool equivalent of someone trying to bribe you with hundred dollar bills
and hard liquor. Still, he was fuming
ahead of me.
I envisioned a moment where he turned into Samuel L. Jackson and screamed, “I’ve had it
with these mothaf&#ing babies on this mothaf&#ing plane!”I started sweating and pleading with Bre as I steadied
myself for the anger that was about to unleash on my child and I.
Somewhere in here, I had a moment. In this moment I wanted
to rip this guy’s face off, but what I really felt was anger toward myself.
Obviously in my previous single life, I had come to deserve this somehow. I
felt immense regret.
The guy turned around, looked me in the eye and said in a
scathing voice, “You need to control your kid, lady.”
“She’s three. F*&K OFF!"
I said it a little too loud. Obviously I had prepared myself
to confront Samuel L. Jackson, not this guy. He turned around anyway, a little
stunned that a lady in a pastel sweater set just told him to f*&k off.
Yeah, kids change everything, but apparently they don’t
change your well deserved karmic payback.
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