Flying the Friendly Skies

It is nice to be home and back to our regular routine. I wish I had more to write about this week but it's been fairly uneventful, other than a few last minute details on the house. We should be closing next week if all goes well, and construction will start very shortly after that.

Meanwhile, I was just reminiscing on some of the best lines I heard during our travels. Thought I would share:

"Man, you gonna have to check yo' bag."
-- A very angry baggage screener to a perplexed young man trying to pass the following items through the xray: A half-full liter of Gatorade, a tube of toothpaste (Costco-sized), a bottle of shampoo, and ... a pocket knife.

"Dude, got your i-pizzle?"
-- A very white guy making sure his very white friend had his ipod ready for the long flight. (What's the izzle?)

"Want to sing or dance?"
-- One flight attendant asking another if she'd rather announce safety protocols on the microphone or demonstrate in the aisle.

"We were going to wait 'til you fell asleep and steal those from you."
-- The friendly older couple sitting next to me regarding my big purple ear plugs.

I guess I should explain that last one. See I had the dubious honor on this last flight of encountering the worst-behaved child I have ever had the dubious horror of meeting. I know I'm not a parent, and maybe some of you parents feel sorry for this poor two-year-old (read: monster) who had to endure a traumatic event such as flying. But honestly, he was THE DEVIL CHILD. Outdone only by his equally horrific mother who split her time between yelling at him at just the right decibel level to pierce right through your eardrums, and chatting with her friend - astonishingly at the same decibel level. In Spanish. Which somehow doubled the torture, but I'm not sure how.

I was sitting across the aisle from them in bulkhead. Michael was sitting directly behind them, trying to work on his laptop, which turned out to be the perfect target for said child to aim for when launching himself over the seats with demonic strength.

The noise this family created actually drowned out the jet engine noise, which was why I had to put in my earplugs for everyone else to envy and apparently contemplate stealing.

But see, if I had had an extra pair, I may not have loaned them to this nice couple anyway. Halfway through the flight this child (who must have had a chili corn dog smothered in rotten cabbage for lunch) let one go in his diaper. Mom obviously thought no one could smell it, so she didn't change the diaper for about, oh, 20 minutes. Just long enough for the stench to burn itself into your nose hairs.

So anyway, what I'm saying is if I had two more earplugs, they would have gone up my nose before my delicate strands withered away somewhere over Tuscon.