Riding on the Romper Room Express

When I returned from Walt Disney World recently I was thankful that my next trip on a plane would have a larger percentage of adults than children. I was looking forward to sipping wine while watching a movie or quietly reading a book. The Gods must have heard my prayers and decided my life had been too easy. This trip had just as many, if not more children than the previous one. I should have known we were in trouble when I was sitting at the gate and a little boy let out a scream that would put many tornado sirens to shame. Really, this kid could be rented out for stadium evacuations! The terminal area became eerily quiet as each and every passenger thought the same thing….I hope he isn’t next to me! Well really non of us had anything to worry about – because he spent the entire trip walking around the plane – sometimes talking but most of the time screaming.

Steve had shown me his ‘sound eliminating’ headphones earlier and I thought – those are nice, but my headset is just fine. Darn you karma! I should have gone directly to the duty free shop and purchased a set. Really, when screams from children can overcome explosions in the movie ‘Dark Knight’ you know it is loud. When the little one wasn’t screaming the lady in front of me was yelling at her son. No he wasn’t naughty – this was how they communicated. I think either they were wearing noise eliminating headphones, their ears were plugged, or no-one ever explained to them about inside voices.

The 2 children behind me took great pleasure in smacking each other, kicking the seats, or trying to play the William Tell Overture on their arm rest ash trays.

Now most of this I figure is pay back for when my kids were young. In my defense I always tried very hard to make sure they didn’t annoy anyone, but I am sure they must have. I tried to keep that in mind as I attempted to sleep.

Just a quick word about the flight attendants on this trip. Those of you that attended Catholic grade-schools probably had a nun at some point that was a no-nonsense person. I think she is the one that trained this crew in customer service. No smiles, very short –anappy assistance, and a need for personal space. When not trotting down the aisles heading for business class they were sitting in the back of the plane watching youtube videos…I kid you not – I stopped at the restroom at one point and the flight attendant was watching the latest Susan Boyle outrage. They did leave a crate of soda, water, and wine outside the door so passengers could help themselves. I was tempted to grab the bottle of wine, and sit at my seat drinking myself into sweet slumber, but I was afraid of what retaliation that may cause and changed my mind.

We passed the ‘romper room torture test’ and were finally released from our seats out into the fresh air of Roma, Italy. Oh sweet, sweet, silence – but wait – we need to take a bus to the terminal. We all smashed (and I mean smashed) into the bus and went in search of our luggage. I had been told in Chicago that the equipment would probably not come out with the rest of the luggage on the carousel…thankfully she was wrong. All of the luggage made it, and as we traveled through the terminal we picked up 6 more students for our group. We now had a herd of 15. I think the best site I saw at that point was Bill’s yellow Marquette shirt….we were almost there….almost.

In the next installment – sneaking on trains.