I'm going to be traveling with my three-year-old this summer - just me and my three-year-old. I am terrified. Imagine the Tasmanian Devil, of Looney Tunes fame. Now imagine him as a child, when he had even more energy. Now imagine trying to hold him on a leash, pulling a rolling suitcase behind you, a backpack weighing you down, and a car seat in the other hand. Did you notice that in this scenario you need three hands? For added fun, the Tasmanian Devil will have to be somehow persuaded to wait patiently while you have his medications screened. Just an extra challenge that you know will make you feel even more accomplished as you sit on the airplane, mocha in hand, having quite comfortably made first boarding call.
Then I wake up to the cold realization that the trip remains weeks away, and remember to add floss to my packing list. Also, the flight has yet to be booked.
The only travel arrangements I have ever made have been for myself alone, and luckily I require only one seat. So after choosing a flight that arrived at a decent time of day, had the website not asked me to choose seating, I may never have considered that our seats might be separate. But there I was, staring at the two remaining available seats, several rows apart. Crap. I can just imagine myself in row 19, sipping my coffee, reading my new book, while in row 27 some innocent businesswoman by-sitter has to pause perfecting her financial charts and graphs every twenty seconds to pick up the car my son vroomed right off the tray. Next flight, then.
Only the next flight didn't give me seating options whatsoever. I called the airline. No guarantees. Really? He's three. How can they not seat me with him (see above scenario with frustrated businesswoman)? Next flight: arrives late at night. Sigh. I vent all this frustration to Husband.
"They can't not seat you with him. How could they put him with strangers? Lawsuuuuuit!" he reassures me, "Besides, the flight attendants will ask people to move, and they will. Someone will." So I imagine myself, on a flight alone, being faced with the choice of giving up my window seat, or being seated next to the Tasmanian Devil. Who needs a window seat anyway? So, comforted by Husband, the no-guaranteed-seat flight it is. I'll just take the airline rep's advice and get to check-in extra early to sort this out. These arrangements were such a headache, and I'm still a bit uneasy about it. Sure, passengers may move to accommodate us, but happily? Unlikely. I think most passengers are stressed out enough trying to get to their destination that playing musical cramped-airline-chairs isn't going to add cheer anyone up. Hopefully that won't be necessary. Perhaps what is necessary is to leave these arrangements to a professional travel agent next time. If for some reason my seat isn't adjacent to my son's, I won't stress. Hey, the seats were purchased by a pro. He must know what he's doing. How you doing back there, frustrated businesswoman? Heheheheheheh.
8/21/2010
Um.
My vacation in June really set me back, and this blog has been as neglected as an original XBox. I'll be trying to make up for this over the next couple of weeks. I'm going to add what should have been the original post date to the title. Here we go.
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