Or, Yet Another Example of How the Best Snappy Reply Is Always Thought of Five Minutes Too Late.
Scene: Last Tuesday night. Packed-full airliner, taking off. Chicago O'Hare to Boise, Idaho. It's taking off about an hour late.
Background: We thought it would be nice to visit my mom, a.k.a. Grandma Wanda for Christmas. The holidays in DC are quiet and a bit depressing, since so few people are actually from here. The city is deserted, which is kind of peaceful, but just doesn't have the same holiday que viva that I grew up with in Santa Fe, where everyone comes home, and the season is warm and glowing with farolitos and cider and fires of pinon wood. Now that we have the Olive, a.k.a. the preshus grandchild, it is more important to have her see my mom, and to do the holidays up right. So, we cashed in some United miles and got ourselves two tickets (plus one lap child) to Boise, Idaho for Christmas. As the date approached, I got more and more apprehensive about entertaining a very active 13-month old on a cross-country flying odyssey at the holidays. And we were going to arrive in Boise pretty late - close to midnight - due to the limited availability of frequent flier seats. But hadn't we flown to Australia with her just fine in April? Except that she was 4 months old and didn't even roll over then. Ohhh crap. Suggestions in response to my panicked Facebook postings about how to entertain a 1-year old ranged from "Benadryl" to "bourbon."
Add to this mix some snow in Chicago, a baby with a completely snot-riffic cold, and our plane sitting on the runway at DCA for two hours. Two. Hours. It takes less time to actually fly to Chicago. I was ready to throw open the emergency door and escape, because, hey! I live 15 minutes from here! I could be home! Seth wouldn't let me. He patiently held the baby, walked the aisles, and let her watch all the people coming back to the galley to buy drinks and snacks from the flight attendants. We finally took off, unsure if we would be able to make our connection in Chicago, and set about entertaining a rapidly tiring Olive. Really, I would have preferred being stuck in Chicago. I would have happily paid for a cab and an overpriced hotel overnight to avoid what happened next.
We make our flight in Chicago, because everything is delayed. It's past 9 pm DC time, and the baby is clearly exhausted, though she is a trooper, and keeps smiling at the airline employees who fuss and coo over her. One worker regales us with her tales of badly behaved adults that day, and grown women who actually burst into tears and threw tantrums and had hysterics because their flights were delayed or missed.
We get on the plane, and try to settle in for the three hour and forty minute flight to Idaho. We hope the Olive will just sleep, because she is so tired, because we are so tired. I soothe her to sleep, and all is well for awhile. But she just can't get comfortable, and dozes for perhaps 20 minutes or so, before waking and crying. I soothe her back to sleep as quickly as I can, and try to snooze myself. This pattern pretty much repeats through the flight. I try holding her in different positions, nursing, blankets, no blankets, snacks, water, my down vest as a pillow, singing, playing, rocking. She's having none of it. She's just beyond tired, beyond being confined, and is arching her back and wailing. But each episode doesn't last long. It's not like she was just screaming nonstop, and it's not like we were doing nothing to comfort her.
In the comforting-dozing-crying cycle, I didn't really notice that a man and his girlfriend in front of us were practically jumping out of their seats, turning around, and staring, no, glaring at us every time the Olive let out a squawk. Finally, the man caught my bleary eyes. "Excuse me, but is there anything we can do?" I know instantly what he means. He and his girlfriend are staring me down, staring at the flailing baby in my arms. I am so tired. My temper rises. I can't stop my tongue. I am instantly on the defensive.
I whine," Don't you think if I could stop her from crying that I would?"
I should have said, "Do? About what? Oh, the baby? I would be very interested to hear any suggestions that you might have. Would you like to hold her?"
He says,"Well, I haven't been able to sleep a wink this entire flight because she's crying!"
I tiredly shake my head and blabber, "Make all the flights be on time. Have us in Boise already. That's what you can do."
I should have said: "Oh, did you think this was a sleep-guarantee flight? You should really talk to United about that." Because your fucking sleep is my problem? You and your goddam fake sympathy, about anything "we" can do. Yeah, I see you offering to hold my child and walk up and down the aisles with her, you self-centered idiot. Would you prefer the kid that's kicking the back of my seat incessantly? Perhaps a large man, overflowing his seat, snoring and falling asleep on you? Would that be better than some intermittent crying? Shall I see if I can arrange that?
He says, in the most condescending, arrogant tone,"There is such a thing as too young to fly, you know."
I burst out, "No there is not!"
I should have said: "Well, there are apparently no limits on assholes."
He sneers, "Just look at that." As the Olive wails and arches her back again, upset at my tension. Like she's this awful, reprehensible spectacle, my poor exhausted baby.
I say, "I suggest you try earplugs."
He says, "I tried that. She's just too loud."
I tuned out after that, and concentrated on slowing my pounding heart and calming the Olive down. I was reeling from the confrontation, and wishing I'd said something different, witty, instead of being so slow, sluggish, exhausted. I wanted to win, somehow with this asshole, even though there is no winning in a situation like this.
I know I'm not as bothered by crying as other people may be, now that I am a parent. But I've been on the other side. I've traveled a lot. I've been that business traveler who recoiled in horror at seeing I was surrounded by children on a long flight, and tried hastily to change my seat. I have said that there should be a child section of an airplane (I still think so, but for different reasons now. Wouldn't it be awesome to have sympathetic seat mates and even playmates in a separate section of the plane? Comfortable nursing and animal crackers for all!). But I would never, ever have been as rude as that guy was to me. Even in my carefree, jet-setting, exotic travel childless years, I had sympathy. I knew even then that children and babies just cry sometimes, no matter what you do. They're little people, after all, with their own thoughts and desires. I always felt bad for the poor parents trying to control their screaming, flailing offspring, whose ears hurt or who were tired. I sat in front of a Mennonite family on one overseas flight from Europe who, because they're Mennonites, had no toys or books or gadgets to distract their young children, who really did wail or whine for the entire seven or eight hours. The hum of the plane and the airline headphones and movies covered it up, and I honestly just felt bad for the kids. I've helped mothers on planes, and entertained children. I only have no sympathy if the parent is doing nothing at all to curb bad behavior of children who are old enough to know better. But it's all still the luck of the draw with air travel. You just have to put your earplugs in, headphone on, turn up the iPod, get engrossed in that book, and try to tune it out. In other words, be an adult about it, and just cope, because it's only for a short time, a blip in the grand scheme.
As one kinder business traveler told me several months ago, when I sat next to him with my small baby in a sling, and apologized, "I don't mind babies. They're just babies. What I do mind is adults who act like babies."
Yeah. You tell me who's the crybaby.
And for the record, as much as I dreaded the flight back, it was muuuuch better. It was during the day, the Olive wasn't exhausted, and was her usual happy self, smiling and making friends with everyone she could stare down. Still, we've decided that we're not taking any flight that is longer than two hours until that kid can sit still and be mesmerized by a DVD for a good long while.
