Volare

     I've never really been a fan of flying. It's not that I'm afraid of flying, I don't like flying commercially. Every time I fly I get the feeling like I'm being crammed onto some cattle car with the rest of the herd and we're bound for oblivion. Invariably, I find myself on a plane full of people who act either like they have not crawled out from under their respective rocks in the last fifteen years or they feel like they're in their own living rooms and it doesn't matter how they act. The only thing that could possibly make it a more relaxing experience (and I'm being very sarcastic) is to introduce a ballistic two year old into the equation. 

     It's that time of year...time to load the family into a confined space that is suspended thirty-odd thousand feet in the air from which there is no escape and fly across the country to visit family. It turned out to be a much more eventful traveling experience than I had anticipated. My daughter apparently thinks that an airport is the ideal place to run amok. She broke free from Mommy's and my grasp and made for an escalator and was a floor above us before we could catch her. Then, she nearly caused the anti-terror task force to descend upon us as she broke free again and rushed the nearest security checkpoint, yelling in semi-intelligible toddler English. I do believe that she was the biggest security exercise the normally lacadasical TSA agents had ever had. If not for Mommy's quick reactions, I'm certain that I would be writing this from Federal prison. I no longer question why some parents put leashes on their children. 

     Then, it was airplane time. A three hour plane trip with a toddler might as well be a month long commitment to an asylum for the violently insane. My daughter's boredom set in about three seconds after we got on the plane, and then it was easily half an hour before we started to taxi down the runway. She had shifted into one of those moods where nothing would satiate her and nothing would calm her. My wife was considerate enough to apologize in advance to the people in the row ahead of us, and when the jack hammer like kicking started on the back of their seats, they were nice enough not to curse us to our faces. All was fine, however, once we reached cruising altitude and we were able to activate our electronic devices (that the pilots use during the entire flight, but for some reason WE can't). 

     She was quietly entertained for about two and a half hours whilst watching movies, but then, with about half an hour to go, her eyes sprang wide open, she flung her little, pink headphones off of her head and with a look of utter desperation and determination she started screaming, "I WANNA GO OUTSIDE!! I WANT OFF THIS AIRPLANE! TIME TO GO OUTSIDE!!" Her little arms and legs were flailing as she ripped off her seatbelt, slid under the seat in front of her and tried to commando crawl her way to the cockpit. I reached down and  grabbed her by her tiny ankle before she totally disappeared and I was able to reel her back in and get her back in her seat and strapped in before facing the wrath of the flight attendant. 

     Luckily, we were able to land without any damage or legal ramifications. And we get to do it all again next week when we fly back home.