When I reached the terminal at the airport, there was thirty minutes to the scheduled departure. There was a long line at the counter thanks to the popularity of e-ticket. I saw Stephane ahead and waved. There was only one clerk (customer service representative?) at the counter and he was taking a long time to issue the boarding passes. I wondered if the plane would leave on time. I looked behind to check the length of the line and saw a family of three approaching. The father was carrying a girl and dragging a Pullman. The mother was carrying a small backpack and looked impatient. I saw her saying something to the husband as they joined our line. Must be one of those, “it’s all your fault” things.
Luckily another counter opened and the line started moving fast. I smiled to myself when I noticed Stephane handing over his driver’s license as soon as he stepped up to the counter. You would do the same thing if your last name were Ruaud. In another few minutes I moved to the counter, requested and got an aisle seat. I used to enjoy plane trips. And that too in long flights to the West Coast, I used to request a window seat to enjoy the view. I don’t enjoy travel any more and avoided them as much as possible. In particular, I dreaded the trips to headquarters in Los Angeles. I lose an entire day on the return journey from the West Coast. The traffic there was a nightmare. I had never seen permanent HOV lanes in any other city.
I boarded the plane, took a book from the bag and stored the bag in the overhead cabin. After a few minutes, a middle-aged man took the next seat. After making himself comfortable and promptly claiming both the armrests, he introduced himself. As I was talking with him, I noticed the family occupying the same row across the aisle. We pulled out of the gate on time but were taxiing as there were few planes waiting to take off before us. The armrest stealer commented that the airlines guarantee only pulling out of the gate by the departure time. He said that the airports are overloaded everywhere and people spend long time taxiing for take-off or for gate availability after landing. Across the aisle, the father was busy storing the belongings in the overhead cabin after taking a baby food bottle and a book. The mother claimed the book and settled comfortably in the window seat. The father started talking to the baby explaining to her that they were in the plane and getting ready to fly to Los Angeles. The mother reminded that he forgot to take the spoon. The father got up, took the bag out, fished out a spoon, bib and napkins.
The stealer was giving his ideas on how to make air-travel efficient. I let him rant for sometime and then fed him with ideas Arthur Hailey had in his novel Airport. He had read the book and said that those ideas would not be used as time had proved already. And got back to his ideas again. I went back to nodding. The baby’s crying interrupted him and the stealer threw a disapproving look at the family. The father was trying to calm the baby and apologized to us. He pulled out a book from his bag and started showing the pictures of animals and birds to the little girl. That calmed the baby and we all fell silent waiting for the take-off. The stewardess came around checking the seat belts and handed over a lap belt to the family. The father attached the belt and took the girl on his lap. The mother inspected the belt, gave her approval and went back to the book.
The plane took off after a few minutes. When they turned off the seat-belt sign, I walked over to Stephane and chatted with him for a while. I saw them distributing the drinks and got back to my seat. The stealer started again about the airline’s choice of the snacks. He wondered why they even bothered doing that.
Across the aisle, the mother had gone to sleep. The father was feeding the baby. I noticed that he was doing a fine job with minimal movements of the spoon and the baby’s clean face. I remembered the last time I traveled with my family and my son’s face after every meal. The girl seemed to be very attached to the father. After sometime, the father frowned as if he smelt something. He took a bag and carried the girl to the rest room. I wanted to stretch and walked over to the area near the wings and the steward’s station. A thought came to my mind that the father must be one of those stay-home dads and the mother was the breadwinner of the family.
As I was finishing a glass of water, the father emerged from the rest room with the daughter and joined me. He apologized again for the disturbance. I told him that he was really handling the baby well. He said he loved his daughter very much. After discussing the weather and sports, the talk turned to our profession. I told him where I was headed and asked him if they were on vacation. The father replied, “No. I am on a business trip. I am a network administrator. I am going to attend the network security conference in LA. I am taking the family along, as I can’t stay away from my daughter for four days. Neither can she.”
0 Comments:
Post a Comment