Aftershock

I don't know what the federal government was thinking by putting all these "safety measures" in place at the airport. Thanks to slower lines, nit-picky airline staff, ridiculous confiscations and no more free meals, I have become the number one terrorist to reckon with on airplanes. So one guy hides a bomb in his shoe. Now I'm expected to take off my stinky Converse to go through security while trying to juggle my baby and look pleasantly sedate while passing through the metal detector? I don't think so. I get pulled over almost every time because it's impossible for me not to look Postal by the time I've disassembled every carefully packed item and placed it in appropriate trays while holding my breath so as not to pass out from my foot fumes. I really hope no fool extremist decides to make a bra-bomb. That's a sure way to make this country tear itself apart one airline passenger at a time.

We are back home and have again vowed never to take Pixie on an airplane. Why do we keep forgetting what total hell it is? It's a 3 1/2 hour flight with a nutzo kid who spends the entire time trying to pull the hair of our fellow passengers and head butting us when we don't let her. I'm not proud to say it's my forum for practicing my swearing and by jove, after this trip, I think I've got it down.

Thanks again to our September 11th masterminds, because of cut flights, all planes are usually full so we don't get any extra room with Pixie. On our flight there was an empty seat a few rows up. The stewardess saw that we were having trouble with Pixie and asked the lady sitting next to us if she would like to move seats. The lady was said she was fine and no thanks. The attendant reformed her question "wouldn't it be nice for this little family to have some more space to handle their baby?" and the woman again said "no, I'm comfortable where I am. I'll just go to sleep on the window." The stewardess asked again two more times pretty insistently but our neighbor maintained that she was happy to keep us cramped and that was that. By this time, everyone around us was giving her pointed looks but she was not budging.

Thirty minutes into the flight, this lovable passenger had fallen fast asleep. Not on the window that she had fought to keep, instead she had oozed all over the left side of my body, daintily snoring into my ear. So here I am cramped in the middle seat with my gigantic husband on one side, a overheated enemy snuggling my other, and baby from Hades in my lap screaming. I spent at least an hour trying to jostle the sleeper off my arm but she didn't budge until we touched down. At that point I sweetly said "I hope my screaming baby didn't keep you up" (meaning of course, I hate your slimy guts) to which she replied, "oh, I slept like a baby the whole flight! I really needed sleep - I have a job and can't sleep during the day like you can." That was it. She is now on my very short hit list. At the very top of it in fact.

I did end up making it back home after 8 total hours of travel time to accommodate the flight. But I'm a broken woman. I don't want to leave the house until this total disgust of mankind works its way out of my system so it could be a few days. The TSA better put mothers with small children on their list of items to confiscate or we are going to have an unfortunate incident one of these days at cruising altitude. So please, come one, come all to visit here in Los Angeles but don't expect me to visit any time soon. At least not until Spike and I can afford that Leer jet we keep talking about. Rich people are on to something with that one. It's amazing that the same people who though of eating fish eggs could have an idea as good as that. That's all for today - I'm off to grumble unintelligibly at my fridge.