editorial

    Airports, airports, all around the world, I think I’ve seen the inside of more airports than there are places to fly.
    Why is it that no one can look cool in an airport? Everyone TRIES to look cool, but since everyone is standing on their toes trying to see over everyone else who is standing on their toes, only little kids can look cool in airports. Since Starbucks is in most airports, some folks try to look cool by drinking their Starbucks coffee as they hurriedly move with a hastened casuality that only no one can really get right.
    Except redcoats. Those guys in the redcoats got the gift of coolness totally wrapped. They stand there and watch everyone rush off the plane, and when asked a question, they casually slide words out like, “Gate 25, concourse C, if you hurry, you might make it.” Yep, those redcoats are an island of cool in a sea of confusion.
    And once you’re on the plane, it’s not much better. Invariably, I get stuck in the middle of either 2 extremely large people, both of which should have had 2 of their own seats to begin with, or the worst, stuck next to a mother carrying a child on her lap. “My son is under 2” says the lady to the passenger service agent. And the PSA believes her, apparently not understanding that children under the age of 2 don’t walk with their own small luggage, Beanie Babies, and monstrous lollipop. In my younger years, I seem to remember that 2 year olds generally still like binkies or pacifiers.
Regardless, that kid got on the flight, and as I watched them go down the jetway, more hearing the loud voice of the child waving the lollipop like some kind of campaign poster, I found myself thinking, “I feel sorry for the poor slob who has to sit next to that kid...”
    Guess who that poor slob was?
    So when Mom was having her dinner (with red wine no less) and trying to juggle a monstrous 2 year old on her lap, a 2 year old complete with a vocabulary that included the words, ‘Mommy, how come Barney doesn’t have on any clothes?’, she of course promptly spills her wine on my previously sparkling white jeans. (Never wear white before Memorial Day, guys)
I calmed down, even though the only pair of pants I had access to now looked as though I’d skinned a deer in them. The woman profusely apologized, apology accepted, and we both settled in for a 5 hour flight from LaGuardia to SLC. Of course, the child had other ideas. It was time to get the lollipop back out and make like John McCain was coming through the airport. Waving that sweet disc of dubious tooth decay in the making, the child somehow managed to firmly plant that sucker right in my hair. Wet on both sides with that kind of slobber that only unruly children and monsters of big screen horror movies like “Alien” can generate, I knew my long hair was a goner.
And through it all, Mom slept. Baby jumped on me trying to get the sucker unstuck from my hair. And Douglas wished for a huge dose of Valium. (for the child, not me) Enough Valium to keep the kid sedated until the age of 18. Maybe 21, depending on the state he lived in.
    Getting my hair free involved prying the fingers of the child of of his lollipop, which of course elicited screams of rage, banshees of earsplitting pain coursing through the cabin, raising the hair (and toupee’s) on everyone’s heads. Except the child’s mother. I personally think she was feigning sleep in hopes that a flight attendant might take away her child and play in the luggage compartment or something.
    Once free of the child’s fingers, I set about to remove the lollipop from my hair. Entering my private apartment on the plane heretofore known as the ‘lavatory,’ I closed and locked the door, being careful not to tamper with the smoke detector. Although I was afraid the smoke coming out of my ears would set it off. Using cold water, soap, and paper towels that disintegrate upon contact with water, I removed the lollipop. It was too large to throw away in the razor slit, too large for the garbage bin, and too large for the toilet. What to do? So I stomped on it, took the small pieces, and fed them to the commode whereafter I’m certain I read in the news about some blue ice landing on someone’s home in Wichita, Kansas, that was flecked with pieces of candy stripe. That was me.....
    My hair, now filled with paper balls, wine soaked jeans blood colored, and my general red face left me with the appearance of a demented escapee from a bad B movie. The flight attendant found me a really nice space on the floor in front of a bulkhead and behind a seat. The lavatory was better, but other people wanted their own privacy.
    I think a few of my fellow traveling companions were thinking of locking my seatmate’s child in there for a few hours. Or wishing they'd brought along rolls of duct tape with which to permanenty affix the child to his seat for the duration of the flight. Better yet, tape the child to the mother. Maybe she was under the impression that flying would all ow society to share her woes as a parent of a child who has watched far too many World Wide Wrestling Federation reruns.
    Regardless, any apparency of affected coolness I may have previously been able to maintain was totally destroyed. I got off the plane and found myself thinking, It's no wonder nobody can look cool in an airport. Being in an airport means you have to fly. And there is nothing cool about flying.
Unless of course, you are a 3 foot tall 2 year old.