Coast-to-Coast Grump

Don't let anybody tell you the economy is hurting. I was in airplanes all day yesterday, flying literally from "sea to shining sea" and realized that Americans have tons of money. How can I tell? They spend bushels of it flying their children hither and yon. The three airports I was in yesterday were seething masses of ankle-biters. This would be OK if at some point these affluent parents actually taught their children how to behave in public. But, assuming THAT is never going to happen, I propose a "kids plane" - similar to the "kids table" at Thanksgiving. Just a smaller plane, dragging along behind the adult plane. How reasonable is that?

Immediately behind me was a young man of about 20 or so with Down syndrome whose mother was totally clueless. This person never learned about "inside voices." He screamed every sentence at the top of his lungs. She never shushed him. In fact, she encouraged him to disrupt the entire back section of the plane by constantly speaking to him. His response was always a loud, "WHAAAAT?" Or "HUH?" This would be followed closely by his sentence of the day. Something like "yadda, yadda, yadda yadda...t'morrah!" If he said that once (at the top of his lungs, don't forget) he said it 150 times. She just kept encouraging him. Then, as we neared landing, he got a new sentence. "I can't wait for her!" (This one was clearly understandable.) And it was followed by loud, piercing wails. After about 40 or 50 repeats of this combination, I thought I was going to have to kill them both. They have no idea how lucky they were to escape with their lives.

And then there was "Sarah." Someone somewhere told 3-year old Sarah she is cute. Sarah is NOT cute. In fact, Sarah is one of those rare small children who is immensely unattractive. But, never mind. She thinks she's cute. And she thinks the world revolves around her....and that all adults wish to converse with her at all times. If she is not allowed to run amok up and down the aisles and converse with the other passengers...she screams. She doesn't cry. She screams. For five hours.

And then there are the darling tykes across the aisle. They shuffled cards for five hours. That's all...they just shuffled cards. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to listen to cards being shuffled every five to 10 seconds for five hours?

At least they didn't scream.