Or: Cram it, Judgy
Once again, Cottontimer** has written a blog entry that I feel strongly about. She writes about flying with kids.
Now, I have issues about flying anyway, so we’ll have to take that as a given. (see Exhibit A)
I could tell you all about the travesty that was the airline we flew. I could tell you about the raging bitch that sat in front of us who, when we were stuck on the runway and her children were invited to the cockpit cooed at them smarmily, “Now, remember to ask intelligent questions!”.
The bitch who I almost pounded unmercifully when Wallace was crying (because someone he’s related to accidentally smacked his head into the overhead bin) and she likewise cooed at us while glaring a thousand knives, “I think he needs to go see the cockpit“.
Actually, beyotch, I think you need to see the inside of my armpit as I strangle you to death; but that would be cruel and unusual punishment since you’re obviously a pathetic, sexless eunuch who will be going to straight to hell. Fuckwad.
I could tell you how random people felt free to glare at us and make open, disparaging remarks, even while Wallace was being a perfect angel and cooing lightly as he looked quietly out the window. I could talk about the Dear Abby letters that involve childfree individuals expressing the opinion that those of us with children should keep them home so that these individuals can work at their seat on their Blackberries in perfect peace, unaccosted by any noise other than the sound of their egos pulsing in and out and growing like The Blob.
Here’s a newsflash, toots: The only place you’re guaranteed privacy is in your home and/or office. How about you lock yourself up and finish your fucking work before you traipse out into the world to annoy the rest of us with your self-aggrandizing prattle?
But I won’t. Because it would make me all angry at the nerve of some assholes and have to start smacking the keyboard viciously. I can’t afford another one, frankly, so I’ll have to let it go.
However, I will tell you the story that Wallace’s Grandpa B told me about the Worst Vacation Ever that he took to Florida when my stepsisters were babies.
If you’ve ever had a kid on an airplane, you’ll know that your greatest worry as a parent/guardian is the ear trouble. The ear trouble, my friends, is vicious and hideous. It leads to children screaming, not because they are bored or bad kids, or because they feel like it, but because they are in horrible, horrible pain.
As a parent, you feel a vague sort of embarrassment because you know the rest of the plane is miserable listening to your child, but your instinct is primarily occupied with trying to find something, anything, to alleviate your child’s suffering. I remember this pain, Fabulous and Constant Reader, and I can assure you that “suffering” is the correct term. The pain is unimaginable.
My stepfather took both my little sisters to see their Grandfather in Florida when they were small. They are 18 months apart, so he had two toddlers, all the accoutrements toddlers require, and two car seats and had to get everything on the plane. Somehow he managed to get everyone settled in. The plane took off, and my youngest sister, who eventually wound up with repeated ear tube placements, found herself in horrible pain and began screaming.
From what my stepfather reports, she screamed the entire two and half hour flight to Florida. Solid.
Now, imagine my stepfather’s desperation. He’s on his own. He has to get both of them fed and settled. He has to keep them entertained and simultaneously attempt to keep the older girl placated while attempting to sooth the younger. I think about that myself and I break out into a cold sweat of horror. And there would be no relief when he landed. Nobody would come to help him wrestle the two car seats, grab the two girls, take the stuff, do the soothing. He was in it up to his waist, and in it alone.
Eventually, mercifully, the plane landed. As he put it to me, “You know how, after the plane is done taxiing to the gate and the ‘Fasten Seatbelt’ sign goes off and everyone rushes to grab their things? Nobody moved, okay. Not one person got up. So there I am, gathering all my stuff together. Trying to get two girls, one of whom is screaming her head off, to the front door. I’m wrestling everything, finally making my way to the front all loaded down, and the entire plane started applauding and cheering.”
Yes, after that hellish flight, with his small, still screaming child, the entire planeful of dicks felt it necessary to make him feel even worse. They let him know in no uncertain terms that not only was nobody going to assist him, but that the force of their unmitigated hatred would push him off the plane ahead of them. His small child was hysterical with pain and obviously he was somehow directly responsible for it.
Then follows a hugely entertaining story about the Worst Vacation to Florida Ever that involves my littlest sister injuring a friendly parrot, and my step-grandfather getting wasted at Disneyland. But this story is about airplanes, so that will have to wait.
I’d love to tell you that things have changed. I’d love to tell you that people are more understanding and realize that little kids are people to. That parents are more likely than anyone else to be horrified by bad behavior, and how to recognize and appreciate when a parent is doing everything in their power to entertain and placate a restless or hurting child, even if what they are doing isn’t working.
I’d love to tell you that having a child on a plane is no longer the social equivalent of farting in church, but I can’t. From the noses that were firmly in the air the last time we flew, I’d say that many people on our flight who caught a glimpse of Wallace were expecting a big, nasty whiff during the Eucharist.
May they all have beans for breakfast next Sunday morning.
Exhibit A:
Aerophobia
Ted Says: Kiss My Ass**Congratulations Cottentimer! She’s been named one of Forbes.com’s Best of the Web for her Genetics and Public Health Blog.
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