NSJ

We headed out to Florida for a couple weeks this morning. The car was picking us up for the airport at 4:15 am so I had to wake Niko at 3:30. Given we have spent the last six months begging our child to sleep, this was a totally insane concept. While I struggled with the conflict of interest, Niko was delighted. He wakes up at 3:30 all the time, but nobody is ever willing to play with him.

During our layover in Houston, I learned that infants can defy physics and move faster than the speed of light. I also learned that infants employ a cloaking mechanism which makes their arms seem short when they in fact have the reach of a giant squid. While Jul was grabbing lunch, Niko and I were sitting at the table with a single bottle of PowerAide outside of his “known” reach. One second we were playing “bang on the table and make animal noises” and the next second, the PowerAide bottle was halfway across the room, with a trail of liquid in its wake. A pilot almost took a major fall slipping on the spill, which I felt was totally bad karama for a layover. I tried to act like I didn’t know Niko, but nobody was buying it given he was sitting on my lap.

We went to board the plane for the second leg during the “people who need a little extra time boarding” period. As the gate agent was taking our tickets he gave me a look like “you need a lot more than a little extra time.” We were traveling with enough infrastructure to resettle Florida should the apocalypse occur while we are in the air. A small sample included, but was not exclusive to, a diaper bag, dog carrier, dog bag, laptop bag (with two laptops, gps navigation device, wireless router, ipod, and digital camera), car seat, stroller, baby, baby toys, short cappuccino (dad’s bottle), and a bag of gummy bears (dad’s addiction). I would have sent Sumo after the gate agent for the snide look but he was, well, asleep. Instead I settled for giving him a glare that said, “a gps navigation device, when thrown at high speed, can really hurt.” After he took our tickets and tapped a short novel on the computer (as gate agents do), he told us we might have a oxygen mask problem. When he said “oxygen mask” I almost shouted, “I WILL PUT ON MY OXYGEN MASK BEFORE SECURING THE CHILD’S MASK!!” I’m sure the airline brainwashing division would be proud. Turns out only certain seats have an extra oxygen mask for an infant. After informing us of this conundrum, he causally waved us onto the jetway and said, “just go ahead and take row three instead of row four.” I was practically frozen in terror. This wasn’t Southwest. Ticketed confirmed passengers with seats cannot cope with casual changes. This crosses several major social boundaries and could even end in breaking air travel laws. This was the chaos theory equivalent to the butterfly flapping her wings. Needless to say, there was no way this was going to go well.

We entered the plane and started to settle into row three, only to realize it was a bulkhead. Short of putting Sumo in the overhead bin, row three wasn’t going to work. We mentioned this to the flight attendant and she casually mentioned that we should move to row 11, “because it has an extra oxygen mask.” (“I WILL FASTEN MY OXYGEN MASK BEFORE SECURING THE CHILD’S MASK!!”) So we set off on an expedition down to row 11, stopping for a snack at row nine. Upon arriving we learned that somebody was already sitting in one of the seats. We explained the problem, and she graciously switched with us. Forgetting we were originally in row four, we told her to sit in one of “our seats” in row three. Next boarded a mother with infant, who was, you will never guess, seated in row three. This is not shocking, because as we all know at this point, it has an extra oxygen mask. (“LADY, DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT FASTENING THE CHILD’S MASK FIRST!”) The nice woman who had switched with us was very confused because we told her to sit in row three. I would say it “all went down from here” but really, it all went down hill from the point at which the gate agent decided to turn seating into a free for all. At this point, it was just picking up speed.

Enter new variable — mother with infant in row eight, which apparently also has an extra oxygen mask. (“SAVE YOURSELF, DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE CHILD!!!”) She was originally in row five but was told to just sit in row eight. She switched with somebody who had switched with somebody else who was now in row 18. At this point I realized we were dealing with the kind of math problem you win a Nobel Prize for solving and I considered crawling into an overhead bin. Seating issues continued to escalate. A father came by with two children who apparently had seat assignments in row eleven. Before I knew it, Jul was moved up to row five. Seat switching continued at a furious rate and didn’t settle for some time.

When the dust settled I was left in row 11 with Sumo, Niko, 15 toys, no diaper bag, and some guy’s children (he was now back in 22 or something). My head hurt trying to figure out what order I was supposed to put on the oxygen masks with two additional children in the picture, and whether the plastic bag was supposed to inflate or not. We were all so shell shocked, we resorted to the only coping mechanism us boys have for these kinds of situations. We all went to sleep.

Despite all the excitement we arrived safely and I’m writing this from our porch with the waves crashing on the beach in front of me.