On a flight from Dallas to Nashville
I spotted the group of six or seven in the line to board. They were loud and seemed to be the not-so-typical travel-by-air passengers. They seemed out of place on a plane that would fill with mostly business people making late afternoon connections between two places during the middle of the week. The most noticeable thing about this group was that one of the women in the group was very vocal. She was so vocal that her voice needed no amplification. It seemed obvious to me that if for some reason we all had to actually get on the runway and board the plane with the engines running that we would hear this woman’s voice clearly above all else.
Then there were several kids. If you have flown you know one of the things that will inject dread into any potential time in a giant tin can on wheels with wings as it hurtles through the air is just the mere thought that you may have to share the ride with screaming kids. In this case, if Momma was loud, and she had already proven to be, then odds seemed likely that one of the kids would be as well.
There were three kids in the group. First, a little girl, probably about six or seven years old, wore a backpack and strapped to it was a baby doll. It was this baby doll that caught my attention. The doll didn't appear to be anything fancy. It really seemed to be a doll out of it’s time. It appeared to be like the dolls the girls played with back when I was a child, very plasticy with matted hair and fingers that forever remained in one position. Surely you know the type, the kind where now and then someone would pick up the doll and one of the arms would pop off. Remembering those kinds of baby dolls, I imagined it now only resided in some low rent neighborhood where care and concern for winning any neighborhood-yard-of-the-week award had left a long time before. I went further into that neighborhood and imagined there in that yard would be bits and pieces of a lived life of a family that would live in such a place...a once-shiny silver Juicy Fruit chewing gum wrapper, a faded yellow tennis ball, some strange partially broken twirly yard ornament sticking up from the ground lonely and forgotten. Then there in the mucky, red earth where strange weeds grow in place of grass would be a plastic baby doll arm, broken off or fallen off, with immovable fingers, left behind to document how neglect had come to reside here.
The little girl had a younger brother. He seemed quiet enough upon first view. He also seemed young enough to be a bit louder if given the opportunity and circumstance. There were others in the group as well including another child. Looking the others over from casual glances, I imagined they were the dad and a set of grandparents.
Because you get to know people you stand in line with sometimes, whether or not you really want to do so, I learned this group was coming from Albuquerque. That was good enough. I then heard them tell someone though that after landing in Nashville they were headed to Chattanooga. And for a moment I imagined, they might not have enough room in the vehicle that would transport them the two hours down I-24 and since my group was headed in that direction I could see some fate intervening that would see our group providing one or two of their group a ride. I winced at the mere thought that this long day could even remotely be prolonged by such a longshot.
After boarding the plane I located my seat first with my eyes. Those ahead of me stood in a line and heaved, shoved and pushed their carry-ons into the overhead bins. Standing there waiting, I looked to the left side of the plane and noticed that the family I spotted in line would be seated in the rows behind me on the opposite side. I then determined this flight might need more than just a book to read but also might require some music and headphones to make the hour and a half flight more tolerable than what I feared at that moment.
At some point while the last few passengers made their way onto the plane, I pulled out my phone and sent a text message to my wife. On that little screen’s tiny keyboard I typed out what I was feeling in my gut and what had burned there since I had first heard the loud woman’s voice. I relayed in my message to her how I just might be on a flight with the Griswold cousins from the Vacation movies. I certainly felt the potential was there.
Soon we were in the air. I then determined to use my time to read. I poured myself into a collection of short stories reading one after another. I would look up from time to time just for a change of pace before returning to my book. The beverage cart came along for another break. I kept reading though. Before I realized it we were nearly at our destination and my fears for a loud, painful trip were unfounded.
As we approached Nashville though, the little boy who was with the loud woman’s group determined it was time to go to the bathroom. Of course by this time, the seatbelt light was on and the flight attendants were patrolling the aisles. Still, the little boy pleaded for a visit to the bathroom not even comprehending the importance of staying seated and locked to a seat while flying through the air as this giant mass of metal and rubber would attempt to land on a skinny strip of pavement at a high rate of speed. This is still something he will have to grasp in the future but at that moment his full bladder was overriding any concern about the plane landing safely. With each passing second, the boy grew more impatient and louder, a family trait, no doubt, I noted. By the time the plane landed, the loud woman was asking someone else in her group to take the little boy to the bathroom. Of course, once the plane actually stopped, half of those on board automatically stood up, as if it is some unwritten rule to do so. Getting the little boy to the back of the plane now would be like swimming upstream. The loud woman continued to proclaim how the boy needed to be taken to a bathroom which allowed all those around this group to look into the eyes of each other as if to ask one another without actual words…’Can you believe this?’
I was with the half of the plane who decided to stand when it was first permitted. Being in a confined space for any length of time really gets to me and that moment of freedom, that moment of release, is like a breath of fresh air. At this point, I almost always somehow think I may be able to grab my carry-on baggage and somehow dash past all those ahead of me. I have been foiled every time I have thought I could do this, including this time. As I stood there waiting for the multitude of tiny serpentine rows to exit before me, the little girl had managed to work her way up the aisle enough to be standing beside my seat. This meant I would have to stand here until my turn to exit but not before allowing the loud woman and her group to exit before me.
I stood there though, head bowed beneath the overhead bin, hands wrapped around my carry-ons, trying to look ahead but also trying not to look anywhere in particular. I then noticed the little girl turn around to the woman behind her, the woman I supposed earlier was her grandmother. Out of the corner of my eye, it became apparent to me why the other woman in this group was so loud.
to be continued...
