We owe you one, Mr. Nice Guy…

One long travel day later, we are here.  And by we, I mean Little Guy and myself, and by here, I am referring to Memphis.   After a very sleepless night (to which even Grandpa Kirk can attest), I barely woke up this morning, finished packing, pointed out a few more important notes to Grandpa, loaded up the car and headed to National Airport.

We had a near repeat of Tuesday's lack of traffic and ease of parking.  The cranky factor was a bit higher, but it hit Kelsey somewhere between boarding passes and security that I was actually really and truly leaving for the weekend.   Those tears were genuine and a compliment of sorts.  We had a chat, Starbucks was promised for them on the way out and they waved me off once we zipped through the security check.

I had the flight beautifully planned, and even came up with a last minute winner of an idea:  stopping for bagels and "choklit milk, choklit milk" as it had now occurred to LG that Kelsey and Cait were not coming and he suddenly missed them utterly and completely.  Nothing helps like a food-related distraction. Never mind I was holding Nick, pulling the mandatory carry-on, had two backpacks and was pushing the Britax in the stroller…what's one more thing?

We arrived at the gate and stood in line until I realized I had almost missed the pre-board.  We hurried up to the front, were allowed to cut in front of folks sans toddlers and their accoutrement and headed down the jetway.  It was smooth sailing, even getting the car seat installed and Nicholas settled before 19A (the window seat occupant) arrived.  I gratefully noted that he seemed nice enough…no glares at Nicholas or pointed looks or eyes rolling.

Sadly, there are many travelers who do this upon seeing kids or babies on planes. The automatic assumption is that the kids are going to bawl through the entire flight and make everyone miserable. Frankly, I will take a bawling child (who is likely suffering from ear pain, not trying to upset everyone) any day over the guy who insists on grabbing my seat and pulling it down every time he stands up or the other guy  who absolutely must recline his seat into my lap and snore for the duration of the trip.

While I had Recliner in front of me (thankfully, he didn't recline too much nor did he snore) and Seat Puller (two, in fact, yippee!) to the back, I lucked out with Mr. Nice Guy to the left of Nicholas.  No looks, nothing.  In fact he fell asleep not long after take off.  Soon after that, we learned just how nice of a guy he could be.

You see, we had a Funtainer (Thermos drink container) for the chocolate milk.  No muss, no fuss, a nice container that keeps the drink cold and very little chance of spillage…or so we thought.  I poured the milk in, Nicholas drank some, and I put the thermos away for later in the flight.  About an hour into the trip, Nicholas decided he was thirsty again.  He asked for the milk and since he has no problem popping open the Thermos, I obliged.  Forget a pop, it was more like a firecracker.

Apparently, the Funtainer was a little shaken up and I don't think being at however many thousand feet helped much.  So instead of just a little click and the lid opening, the straw nearly exploded out of the top and quite a decent amount of chocolate milk spewed out…all over Mr. Nice Guy, who was, yes, still sleeping. 

He woke up to me apologizing profusely and muttering something about wipes.  I frantically handed him a few and grabbed back the dirty ones the minute he was finished.  I dabbed about the ceiling, tried to get every last drop and fell back in my seat utterly defeated…forget my worries about Nicholas kicking the woman in front of him, I had just managed to ensure dirty looks for the rest of the flight.

Guess what?

There weren't any.  Not much small talk, but no glares or annoyed glances (even when Nicholas kept threatening to randomly push buttons on his laptop…darn those high car seats!).  In fact, when I offered that he could get off the plane ahead of us, he actually smiled and mentioned that he was not in a hurry as he had an hour and a half before his next flight.

I still felt awful.  Not as bad as if Nicholas threw up on him (ooh, I just jinxed our flight on Monday…) but still pretty low.  For lack of anything else, we just tried to keep quiet for the rest of the flight (the laptop business aside).  Since I have no idea who he was or where he was from, I will just have to send this thank you out to cyberspace and hope somehow he knows how much we appreciate what he did…and more so, what he didn't do.

He didn't yell, point,  or curse children traveling on planes.  He cleaned himself up and went back about his business.  He didn't seem bothered by my incessant chatter to keep Nicholas occupied and was gracious enough to let us deplane first.  Mr. Nice Guy, thank you.  Thank you on behalf of anyone who has traveled with a child and had something similar happen.  By doing absolutely nothing, you made what could have been a nightmare bearable and almost happy.   I knew I could count on myself in some respects, such as bringing the Clif bars, books, toy cars & a mini-Magna Doodle to keep LG occupied, but didn't realize I could also count on you, my fellow traveler.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!