Displaced

I do not like to fly.

For starters, I’m claustrophobic. Small spaces = bad. Planes = small spaces. Ergo planes = bad.

Also, I do not believe in flight. It is highly improbable that something as heavy as a plane can get off the ground at all. I could see maybe – maybe – four inches off the ground, but that’s my final offer.

As a result of the misery incurred by doubt and phobia, I am a panicked and unhappy flier. The stupid music they pipe into the plane doesn’t help matters either, so add “mildly irritated” to the list.

Do you know what else does not help matters? #$(*&#%# children, that’s what. The expletive is directed at you…yeah, you: the wild-haired British kid who wandered into my row. As if the window seat in the last row on a red eye were not bad enough.

Due to a lack of consistent parenting standards (why doesn’t everyone subscribe to my standards?), my current estimate of the ratio of cool children to monsters is 1:100.

This is not the children’s fault. It is the parents’ fault. Children don’t know any better. But just to be fair, I dislike them both equally, as a preemptive strike at the future parents these children will become given the lack of quality upbringing they’re receiving.

Note to Wild-Haired British Child: screeching around the boarding area in your pastel Crocs does not make people want to sit next to you. I avoid that behavior myself, just in case someone’s watching. Also, I don’t like Crocs.

In my view, children shouldn’t be allowed on planes the same way they should not be allowed in bars. Children go to Gymboree, not Employees Only. By the same token, they should get their own planes or stay home and play Scrabble in their pjs instead of putting everyone else’s night out at risk. If planes were bars, 99% of kids would not make it through the door and the same should go for planes.

For one, kids are by definition underage. And they can’t prove they’re not because none of them have drivers licenses. Underage = limited self-control and no sophisticated decision making. Not a good qualification for cramped, dark spaces.

Strike two: it’s a rare six-year-old who is dressed appropriately for going out among adults, especially in the evening. Also, their hair is messy, like they’ve barely pulled it to together from their last night out. The least you could do is run a comb through your tiny mane, Kid-O. If you can’t dress for the event, don’t show up.

And last but not least, you can tell just by looking at ’em that they’re going to be rowdy. No one that small has any kind of tolerance – for liquor, sitting still or whatever. At some point, that kid is going to take his shirt off, probably exposing a pasty and out of shape body and nobody needs to see that.

Who wants to sit next to the underage, under-groomed, out of control drunk? No one, that’s who. Likewise, no one wants to sit next to a kid on a plane. Especially not on an overnight flight and especially not me, after the day I’ve had. COME ON: I just left my job five hours ago. Your blankie and bottle are not even on the same radar of insecurity and angst. Maybe to you they are, but come back and chat with me when you’re 32 years older and cutting out on a twelve-year career in corporate America during a recession. Until then – or until you get your own airline – please stop whining and get out of the aisle.