Manners and decency

We went to NC over the weekend. We took Miss Baby to see my mother in law, and also we decided to take in the Duke-UNC game. We should have sold our tickets. Yuck! What a stinker!

We went to my favorite undergrad hangout, Satisfaction, and enjoyed a wonderful pizza and cold beer. I *wish* I could find pizza that yummy elsewhere!

However, we went on to the game, to sit and enjoy. The game was GREAT for the first 5 minutes, and then everything proceeded to fall apart from that point forward. There was a UNC fan and her son behind us. I'd like to point out that they kept their mouths shut - I saw her grinning ear-to-ear after the buzzer, but never once did she taunt or say anything nasty.

I wish that could have been said for the team on the floor. What a bunch of jerks - especially Tyler Hansborough who went around grabbing his wee wee and thrusting his crotch at a stadium full of kids. Nice dude. Then there was the UNC fan who sat down in the chairs for the UNC bench after the game. I say chairs, because he took up four of them. And he sat there flinging his crotch in the air. What is it with these people and the pelvic thrusting???

So, it was bad. Made worse by us having to spend an hour sitting on US 64 trying to get from I-40 back to Cary, what should be a 5 mile journey.

However, what killed me was last night when we got onto the airplane. Delta, as is their practice, did not pre-board us again. I had almost-free tickets, so we took the damn trip with them. By the time we boarded, the jerks sitting in front of us had put all their luggage into our overhead bin, rather than gate-checking it. I asked if they would please do that, as we needed to keep our diaper bag close at-hand, and they said "No. We were here first." Not that they need it - just a nyanny-nyanny-boo-boo sort of response.

So we jammed the bags under the seat and decided we'd deal. About this time, I start hearing them bitch about having to sit by a baby. "It will probably cry and scream. I don't understand why parents always bring their kids on airplanes - they ought to have a rule to charge DOUBLE for the kids!" And they proceeded to carry on a bit. Then the people behind us started bitching.

Now, I want to pause here and make sure it's clear - Miss Baby has been on half a dozen plane trips covering 10 or so flights in her year on this earth. She has slept from take-off to landing on each of those, never uttering so much as a peep of discontent. She has been the model angel child on every single flight.

So, she must have heard the complaining, understood, and proceeded to show them what's what. Kharma's a total bitch sometimes. Piece of advice - if you're sitting in the bulkhead seat (already blessed with legroom), and you've taken a family's overhead bin space, perhaps it's best to suffer through keeping your chair upright when you're sitting in front of a couple with a one-year-old.

Or maybe just keep your bitching to yourself when she kicks your seat repeatedly and plays with the tray table over and over.

Because, you see, Miss Baby is intuitive, and she figured these people were not so very nice. So she took her revenge and screamed. And wiggled. And kicked seats. And did all the awful things a la Jeffery (from the Bill Cosby skit). She was AWFUL!

And I have to admit, as her mommy, I didn't try to curb her as much as I may would have, had the folks around us not been such obnoxious jerks to begin with. Don't get me wrong - Mr. Mac and I both tried our best to soothe her. We asked Delta for milk after Miss Baby drained her cup, but of course, they didn't have any. We put her in the aisle to play, since we had no room in front of us. Basically, we did what we could, but I have to admit, when she was in my lap, I let her have free reign with her feet. She kicked the hell out of the seat in front of us.

At the end of it all, though, it came back to the kid grabbing his wee wee on Cameron's floor after the game. And to the rather large dude taunting in the same way. It's all about decency and respect for the folks around you. We don't live alone in this world. We are required to share our space with others. It's only common decency to make sure that we take steps NOT to interfere with others.

I'm not saying the guys in front of us on the plane should have offered their seats (despite that being what I've done in the past for moms with a child in lap). However, perhaps they could have acted in such a manner as not to take up what little bit we had been granted. Maybe taken a little bit of sympathy for someone who's obviously got a little more on her hands.

I've become sick of folks giving lip about babies on airplanes in general. I have to admit, I've never been one of Those Travelers who complain about it to begin with. I've always felt more sympathy for the parents than anything - I always knew it couldn't be easy! Take our perspective - we fly to NC because it's a 10-hour drive (minimum) for us. We can't just hop in the car to go see Grandma for the weekend. Furthermore, we take at least one kid because, well, they're the only two grandkids that she has. She takes great joy out of seeing her grandgirls, and we try our best to get them there as much as possible. Flying is expensive, so we economize as much as possible, taking advantage of the airlines' generosity for allowing us to carry our small one in our lap.

It's really something, though, that folks feel like it's their right to complain about this kind of thing. And complain so loudly that the parent (or possibly even the kid) overhears.

Sometimes, though, the kid gets back at 'em. And I must say - I have to laugh when it comes back to bite the complainers in the arse.