gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

Streaks on a Plane

Flying back from Cuba a week ago, our kids were pretty tired from their first trip abroad. When my five year old gets tired, she gets mopey. The three year old? She turns into a raving lunatic.

She was manageable for the first two hours of the three-hour flight. Then she spills her water on her shirt, and insists on taking her shirt off. Fine, I figure, she's puny, she's got the window seat with only family members beside her. Shirt comes off. Shoes, too, for some reason.

Then: "Uh oh, pee pee!" So my wife takes her to the bathroom lineup, only to be sent back to her seat due to turbulence. Same thing happens three times, at which point my wife says the turbulence can go to hell, this child is gonna pee pee. That mission is accomplished, but she (child, not wife) kicks off her pants and underwear. And then she makes a run for it!

I don't know where she figures she's escaping to, but she runs down the aisle of the plane until she gets to my seat and I'm able to reel her in. By the time I plunk her in her seat, she's laughing like crazy and talking gibberish, her sun-bleached hair is all over the place and she's bouncing around trying to avoid a reunion with her pants. She looks like some sort of feral monkey child.

I tell the sniggering people behind us that we found her on the beach, and are bringing her home to see if we can civilize her.

At least the last part is true.

(And no, that's not a photo of the event, it's a father's Photoshop interpretation. I didn't have my camera with me. And I wouldn't put my child's ass on the internet. And the chortling passengers are missing. And she wasn't wearing shoes.)