Joelle’s First Flight Part 1 of 2

Last week I had the honor and privilege of being a groomsmen in my brother-in-law’s wedding. The only problem was the wedding was happening in Spokane, Washington. I had known this for several months now but I was praying (and hoping) my brother-in-law (Jon) would post-pone the wedding for another few years so my daughter would be a little older than, you know, nine months. It didn’t matter what the reason was for postponing the wedding as long as it was postponed. Naturally the wedding was not postponed so my wife and I had to fly to Spokane with a nine-month-old child – fun times ahead!

I remember when I was single traveling at the airport. I would look at crying children with complete annoyance hoping I wouldn’t get stuck with a seat close to them to hear their crying. Traveling was also fairly stress-free. I didn’t have to worry about a child. Those days feel like a long time ago. Once my wife and I got to the airport, I was immediately stressed out because I kept waiting for our child to blow up. Getting through airport security is stressful enough but try doing that with a crying nine-month old… I felt the single people looking at us with the same annoyance I use to. Welcome to parenthood!

The first flight was to San Francisco, which then would connect us to a flight to Spokane. We boarded the plane, buckled up, and prayed Joelle would handle her first flight okay. If you’ve ever traveled by plane you know the boarding process is always an adventure. There’s always those few people who try and stuff their clearly too big carryon in the overhead compartment and hold up the line (I think my sister-in-law happens to be one of them! ☺). Some of those people even ask for help, “Excuse me, could you help me stuff my over-sized carryon that’s way too big to fit into this overhead compartment? If we keep pushing I’m sure it’ll eventually go in.” Look, I understand that after airlines started charging for extra bags that people started doing this in order to save money. I get it. People are just trying to save money, so I’m not too annoyed by that. I’m just annoyed by the airlines that created this problem.

We can’t forget those people who simply refuse to turn off their electronic devices out of pure defiance. Everyone knows the chance of our device actually affecting the plane’s electronic equipment is rather low. But since there is a slight possibility, the airlines don’t want to take that chance. I get it. So when I see people trying to hide their devices only to be reminded again by the airline staff they need to turn it off, it’s frustrating. You mean you’re holding up the plane because you can’t turn off your device for 20 minutes?

Part 2 will be posted tomorrow.