Frequent Criers

(Written in 2008)  

   Photo by H. Darr Beiser

Peter and Franky Masked in Flight

     When the boys were little I used to pack for a flight as if I were part of Admiral Peary’s party headed out to find the North Pole…without the aide of the Inuit guide and the dog sled.  I had to have a bag of tricks that guaranteed their entertainment, and thus, my sanity for hours and miles on end.  I would pack books, travel games, playing cards and flashcards, crayons, markers, coloring and puzzle books, action figures, finger puppets, stuffed animals, board games, beanie babies. Then there was the supplemental bag of food entertainment, juice boxes, sippy cups, goldfish crackers, Cheeze-Its, Cheerios, gum, candy. And I always felt it necessary to top it off with a new “surprise” toy. At the 11^th hour, I would be headed to the toy store, to find that special something that would thrill and delight the boys with its sheer novelty—Silly putty! Etch a Sketch! A new Star Wars Lego project! Handcuffs!  A rabbit’s foot! Of course this new item had exactly the same interest staying power as any other item. Minimal. But travel days did become a sort of Christmas morning for the boys, or at least a night of Hanukah. A new toy was guaranteed for every trip.

     Invariably once I got the little buggers into their seats, they would immediately pull out the emergency card from the seat pocket and start asking me terrifying questions about when they could get on that cool slide for an emergency evacuation. Or when we would get to use the drop-down oxygen masks.  Or they would show a sustained interest in the barf bag. Or they would reach up and push the knobs for the lights, the air vents and the attendant’s call button. They would raise and lower the window shade repeatedly and violently. They would unlatch and relatch the tray table, repeatedly and violently. They would raise and lower the arm rests, repeatedly and violently. They would pull the telephone out of its holder and let the cord snap it back into place. Repeatedly. Violently. They would drop their Cheerios onto the foul floor or between the disgusting seat cushions, scarf them up with their tiny fingers and eat them with relish. They would report a desperate, excruciating need to use the bathroom during take off, landing or periods of extreme turbulence, which they found utterly delightful and hilarious. 

     Once I got onto a plane so laden with the bag of tricks that my spine had curled into the shape of a question mark.  As I trudged down the aisle to our seats, a mother of teen boys looked up at me with pity and said, “I remember those days. Now all we need is a book.”  Indeed, her hands were as free as her handsome sons, who each held a paperback, nothing more, nothing less, and those single books were going to sustain each of them for the entire flight to California. I couldn’t imagine.

     Well now my boys are teens and they grudgingly carry a book, usually required reading. And they carry and pack their own bag of tricks. Now that we are in the Techno Age, their bag is laden with iPods, Nintendo DS players and electronic games, and DVDs.  Their snack entertainment has advanced from finger to fist foods—gummy worms, peanut M and Ms, canisters of Pringles, huge packs of gum. And if they want something new, they have to buy it for themselves.  But they are still apt to pull out that emergency card at the most inopportune moment and start asking me terrifying questions about how the floatation device really works and why we have to bend over for the crash position.

     But at least all I have to carry is a book.