The Lasagna Incident

It’s incredible how much STUFF you need when you travel with a baby, I think, as we stand in line for security with our stuff piled around us.

Stroller? Check.

Car seat? Check.

Bag full of baby stuff? Check.

Pack ‘n’ play? Check.

We have so many essential baby items that Jay and I have had to squeeze all our things into one bag lest we be over the baggage limit of 2 per person.

We’re on our way to Kauai with my brother and sister in law. I’m nervous but excited about a week on the tropics with my 6 month old. We’ve traveled with him before, and so (we think) are basically experts.

It took some work, but I’ve orchestrated CJ’s sleep and feeding schedule precisely so that will eat when the plane takes off (sucking on a bottle keeps the pressure from building up in his tiny ears), and then fall asleep and hopefully sleep most of the flight.

We board the plane first because we can and we haven’t yet figured out that MORE time on the airplane with the baby is NOT A BONUS.

CJ snuggles into my arms and happily sucks his bottle. I stroke his downy head and elbow my sister-in-law, Melanie. “See,” I say, “like a charm!”

Melanie nods and reaches into her bag for the latest People magazine and we settle in. Behind us, Jay and his brother are discussing what we’ll do when we land.

The plane takes off and, just like magic, CJ finishes his bottle and falls asleep. He is lying face-up across my lap, his mouth open. A teeny-tiny line of drool makes its way from the corner of his mouth. From this angle, his eyelashes are impossibly long. Is there anything more intoxicating than a sleeping baby?

I breathe a contented sigh and lean back in my seat, turning my head to gaze out at the blue sky.

Might as well get comfortable. He should sleep for at least 2 hours.

There are a lot of rules in life. But the one that I’m intimately familiar with is this: a perfectly smooth road can only mean there’s bridge out just around the corner. Or a traffic jam. Or a land mine. Or a pack of no-good sorts waiting to ambush you. The specifics may vary, but the overall theme is always the same.

If things seem to be going just a little too well, be afraid, be very afraid.

Not twenty minutes have gone by and the flight staff is coming through the airplane with lunch. It’s lasagna, which I’m actually looking forward to because how can you mess up lasagna?

The flight attendant, a middle-aged women with bleached-out hair and a smoker’s voice, reaches across to hand Melanie her piping hot dish of foil-covered lasagna. She’s turned, talking to the other flight attendant, and somehow managed to lose her grip on the food.

As if in slow motion, I watch it fall through the air to land foil-side-down on CJ’s face.

AYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

He wakes up with a bellow of rage.

“OH MY GOODNESS!” I shout out, grabbing the lasagna off my baby’s face where it leaves an angry red rectangle-shaped mark.

The flight attendant jumps back in surprise. Then she grabs the lasagna out of my hand.

“He’s FINE,” she says brusquely, “it’s not that hot. I’m sure he’s just surprised.”

I look down at the red mark on my screaming baby’s face. This is more than “surprise.” But any reply is lost in my urgent attempts to calm him down.

Without as much as a SO SORRY I BURNED YOUR BABY, the flight attendants hurriedly push the food cart away from us down the aisle.

I desperately rock CJ back and forth, but he refuses to be comforted.

Being rudely awakened by a burning slap on the cheek is NOT something he’s ok with. And he’s making sure we all know it.

Jay is shaking with rage. While I was scrambling to recover from the lasagna incident, he saw the flight attendant rolling her eyes at me. This did not please my dear husband, who is an otherwise peaceable man. His brother tries to calm him down because karate chopping, strangling, or otherwise accosting the flight attendant, as Jay so desperately wants to do, is not going to get us anywhere that we want to go.

CJ screams for half an hour, and then finally settles into an ongoing state of general fussiness, which lasts for the duration of our flight. He’s missed his nap, he’s tired, and he’s VERY unhappy.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, we hear the chime of the bells signaling that it’s almost time to land.

As the flight attendant comes through the cabin one last time, she stops by my seat where I’m bouncing CJ on my knee. “HOLD ON TO THAT BABY!” She admonishes me before hurrying on her way.

Because I DIDN’T know to hold onto my baby.

This from the woman who did such a great job of HOLDING ONTO the lasagna.

I’m tempted to run up the aisle and give her a piece of my mind. But I don’t. I’ll just say something to the airline representatives in the airport, I think.

But when we get off the airplane, we are greeted by the hot humid fragrant air of KAUAI. Spending an hour lodging a complaint is the furthest thing from my mind.

***
I really did intend to lodge a complaint. To call or write a letter upon our return home. But I never did. I often think about that flight, though.

I’ll never understand why the flight attendant felt the need to treat us so poorly after something that was clearly her mistake. Why she didn’t apologize. Maybe she was worried about a lawsuit. Maybe she was just an unhappy woman. I guess I’ll never know.

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Do you have your own travel horror story? Write it up and add your link here (go here for the button code). I’ll keep it open through Sunday (27th) at midnight, PST. Or tune in next Monday for a whole new topic!

1. Rachael 2. Honey Mommy 3. Simply Shannon 4. Matthew Dryden 5. Summer @ Wired For Noise 6. Michelle

7. Mommy Daisy 8. Harmony 9. Our Belizean Elopement (Wendy @ Let the dog in!) 10. Coffeegrl 11. Jackie W transplanted Okie (Buried in Legos) 12. Polka Dot Mommy- Terrorist on the Plane!

13. Roger 14. Stacy (Mama-Om) 15. dumblond 16. Write From Karen 17. Val 18. Kerrie @ Sanity Department

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