My girlfriend often makes fun of me for being a travel snob. On a trip in April, she knew I tested her ability to pack an appropriately sized bag, swiftly go through security, and navigate any other aspect of flying. I’ll admit there is truth in this. In 2011, I’ll go on over 150 flights, and I do have certain routines and procedures. I like to fly in comfort, and I get frustrated a little bit too easily when people don’t follow the system.
So that brings me to last night.
My flight was almost an hour late in departing–not my longest delay, but a delay nonetheless.
Rather than flying on a regular size plane on the two hour flight back to Phoenix, the airline used a smaller regional jet. This took out my beloved frequent traveler section where I have more room, not to mention First Class where I’m often upgraded.
So I was in coach (this is where the girlfriend makes fun of me and my snobbery).
As I watch the other passengers board, I see a mom enter with a child strapped to her and far too many bags. I saw the flight attendant ask if the large child had his own ticket, and the mom responded by saying he was a lap child.
Yep, they sat right next to me.
For the two hours I was kicked, touched by sticky yogurt fingers, had my hair pulled, listened to some loud screaming, lost my reading light to the button experiment of the kids, and much more.
But I actually didn’t mind.
Okay, I minded a little bit–I was going to watch a DVD on this flight and just relax, but instead I had the chance to interact with the mom and her son.
As she sat down next to me, I thought, “okay, what if this was one of my cousins and their child?”
I tried to ditch my “snobbery” for the flight, and see if I could actually be a human being.
I’m glad I did.
Turns out that they were flying to attend a family member’s funeral. Not a fun reason to fly. They had already been on one flight that day, sat in the airport with that same delay, and still had a few hours to drive.
The mom was obviously exhausted, yet she was still doing her absolute best. When the kid would pull my hair (he liked the semi-spikey nature of it) she’d admonish him. She tried to find that perfect balance of letting him touch lights or the window shade to keep him happy without having him break out in screams. She kept her cool, maintaining right and wrong.
But the kid wasn’t even three, and he had been sitting around for most of the day. He, too, was probably doing his best.
I happened to have the “There’s a Monster at the End of this Book” app on my iPhone and was able to entertain boy for a few minutes during the flight. He thought it was pretty cool, and the mom thanked me more than she needed to.
And it got me thinking… like Grover in the book, I far too often would preassign a role to that “monster” who might sit next to me on my flight, and yet they might be a lovable “monster” like Grover. Yes, it wasn’t my most comfortable flight, but the kid was pretty hilarious.
So I guess I’m writing this blog in a sense to remind me and potentially provide a reminder to you to once again, not judge a book by its cover, and maybe put yourself in someone else’s shoes (or in their seat). We’ve heard these truths since we were little kids, but I had to take a moment and remind myself about them last night. I’m glad I did.
Otherwise, I would have just been a travel snob, and while my girlfriend might have had fun teasing me about that, the women sitting next to me would have had a much worse traveler sitting next to her than the one sitting on her lap.
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