Traveling with children is always a blast

Funniest Mom Tweets Ever

This tweet reminded me of a story:

When my Grandmother died, and I decided to travel back to Michigan to attend her funeral, and I decided to take Maddogsson, age 3. The planning was simple, we had to fly the next day, and would stay a few days after to visit relatives before flying back to Portlandia.

Maddogsson was an accomplished traveler at 3, and enjoyed flying. We traveled on RenoAir, I had never heard of them, and have not since, but the flight from Portlandia to Reno was uneventful. Once in Reno we had a wait, but not a plane change, we were told we could debark, to allow Maddogsson to "stretch his legs," so we did. 

The uneventful became eventful when we reboarded. The airline had given our seats away even after directing us to debark! So, I went out to speak with an attendant. She was a very nice woman who took my information, and assured me she would work the problem out. 10 minutes later they were calling "all aboard who's going aboard," so I approached her again. She seemed flustered. She shooed me away. About 5 minutes later she had a solution, she had two seat, one was 5A, the other 25C, or something, I don't actually remember the numbers just that they were far distant. 

I gave her the deadpan look for a minute, but she was not kidding, so I said, sure. I'll take 5A, put Maddogsson in 25C. Then I handed her his small carry-on bag with food, toys, games, etc. She looked nonplused. Then she asked about the bag. I told her that he might only be 3 but he was an excellent traveller, and he would likely not require much attention from seat mates other than to occasionally help him get another game, or perhaps discuss some subject he was thinking about at the time, and of course with the meal, he would need help with that. I told her I really doubted he would be a problem. Now she looked really nonplussed.

A few minutes later she called me back up to the counter, and let me know we had been rebooked first class.

Worked like a charm. 

On the flight home from Michigan we ended in a seat next to a middle age "businessman" wearing a suit. Once he spied Maddogsson he began to kvetch, bellyache, and whinge about children, and always sitting next to children on flights, and how if there were not bad luck he would have none at all. About 10 minuets later, we taxied onto the runway, ran the engines up and dropped the brakes, as we roared down the runway, I leaned over, and said to Maddogsson, "Don't you just hate those big babies in suits, every time we fly we get a seat next to one of them, they whinge, cry, wheedle, mope, and bellyache about workers, the people they sit next to, their wives, work, and everything else." Maddogsson just nodded, and continued with his monologue about what every sound meant, "That's the wheels coming up, and locking down, and that's the flaps retracting . . . "

Our seat mate was quiet the entire flight, he never spoke another word. After we landed, and as we stood to debark, I tousled our seat mate's hair, and said, "Now that wasn't so bad was it?" Too bad, but I doubt there is any chance we could ever be friends! 

Worked like a charm.