Public Transportation

A few days ago, while innocently riding the Tube, a stranger fell asleep on my shoulder.

While hilarious, this got me thinking about public transportation etiquette. In particular, the etiquette of bad children. I'm not sure if I truly am a ninety-year-old woman trapped in a young body, but it seems to me that kids are getting more and more unruly with each passing year. And parents, in return, seem to care less and less about whether their child is a problem to the rest of the world.*

I got an up-close example of this on my flight back to the USA a couple days ago. It was about 3 am London-time, and I had a little puddle jumper flight before I could finally fall asleep in my big American bed. I was completely loopy from jet lag like I had never been before. Let's just say, I kept having to re-check my bookbag to make sure that I had not, in fact, left my computer in customs. Four times in ten minutes. Because I couldn't remember.

And of course, I was seated in front of one of the most infamous fellow flying terrors: The Child Who Will Not Stop Kicking Your Chair. I think these horrors rival only the Sincerely Smelly Person Who Does Not Realize That They Bought Only One Plane Ticket And Are Also Using Half Of Your Seat As Their Own. The rest of problematic travelers can generally be avoided with a trusty set of ear plugs or an iPod. Even Lady Who Wants To Tell You Her Entire Life Story On A Twelve Hour Flight can be hushed up with a fake dozing and then slipping some earphones in. Creeper Who Won't Stop Staring At You can easily be forgotten about with a nice in-flight movie.

As my jet lag continued to set in, and clearly the child's mother's polite explanation that "it is not nice to kick the chair because someone is sitting in it" did not sufficiently solve my problem, I began to let my mind wander... in evil directions. Turning around glaring did no good, nor did attempting to sleep in different positions. Every single time that I would get 30 seconds of uninterrupted drifting off to sleepyland, BAM! ... BAM! BAM! BAM! My head would get knocked back into second grade.

I started to think about whether there was room in the overhead compartment for a small human. And just how noise-proof they really made those things. And whether or not the worst part about flying in the overhead would be the lack of complementary drink services. Let's be honest, that's a pretty sweet part of flying. Though I have never actually bought myself tomato juice, I regularly request it on planes. And feel special for doing so. As special as my drink order. I'm no boring Diet Coke lady today.

I even thought back to last spring, when I had a small dog traveling under my seat. What a great dog that was! A few small whimpers, then Spot was off to dreamland for the entire 2 hour flight due to sedation. That was it! Unruly children simply need to be sedated and kept in cages on a flight. The well-behaved ones are entirely welcome to fly like the rest of us. But: If you bring a little impolite ankle-biter onto a flight- be prepared to share your foot room with it.

I was a genius. A genius whose hair was now being played with by grubby, unwashed miniature hands. That's it, kid. You don't even get a chew toy in your cage.

And I will be in North Carolina for the next three weeks, so I'm taking a hiatus from blogging. Expect a return in early to mid January! I hope everybody has a wonderful Christmas and happy New Year!

* Though I did recently hear about a supermom who was flying internationally with a small baby. Right after getting on-board, she passed out earplugs to all of the passengers seated around her, telling them that she was very sorry if they are disturbed, but that she wanted to lessen their inconvenience of being seated near her. What a great idea!