PERSPECTIVE (Stop Kicking My Rear)
I'm in a window seat on a flight to Florida. I'm barely functional because of world-class, Olympic Gold Medal jet lag from an Australia trip two days before. I can barely think, I'm so tired. All I want from life at this moment is to sleep. All I want is to close my eyes and wake up in Florida. I feel like stale, leftover toast.
Behind me, however, there's a toddler practicing Flamenco dance steps on the back of my seat. There's also a lot of toddler noise coming from the same general area. I can deal with the noise, I have some good headphones. But the kicking, man, there's no way to sleep through that. So I look back between the seats and see it's a little girl behind me, maybe three years old. Her dad, in the middle seat, catches my eye, and I see him motion her feet down with his arm.
This works for approximately the attention span of a toddler, and a few seconds later she's dancing all over my rear end again. I wait awhile, look between the seats once more, a little longer this time. I can see the dad has a little boy on his lap, and the boy is the source of the noise. The little boy is really letting loose, too. A lot of incomprehensible moaning and gutteral noise. At times he's flat-out wailing. It's like he just got this new voice box and is testing it for volume, tone, range, and vowel sounds. Dad sees me again, I see his arm move toward his daughter. There's another ten second pause and the kicking resumes. I need to sleep so badly, but this kicking is relentless.
My patience is short. I'm functioning at one level above zombie. I start thinking, "If they're too young to travel, why don't you leave them home? I paid for my ticket; I deserve to fly in relative peace. Could we tie her shoelaces to the armrest? Does anybody here have some St. Joseph's Ambien For Children?"
Finally, I unhook my seat belt, rise, and turn so I can actually speak to the father. I look back over the seat at him, he looks up at me. I notice he's a nice looking young man, maybe late 20s. I start to tell him I can't sleep with all this kicking. But before I can finish the sentence, he mouths the words, "I'm deaf."
My mouth closes. My words drift away. I nod at him that I understand. I look at his wife in the aisle seat. She smiles and nods, "We're deaf." I look back at the little boy on his lap, because he's obviously older than his sister. Why would he be the one on the lap and not the little girl? Then it's obvious. The little boy is mentally handicapped. That's why he can't control his voice. And guess what: his parents can't even hear it.
All this flashes through my mind in about five seconds.
So I nod, and sit back down. I start thinking about this family. Two deaf parents with two toddlers, one of whom is mentally challenged. I think about all the people I know with young kids, and how much energy it takes to raise them. I think about the people I know who have handicapped kids, kids with autism or cyctic fibrosis. I think about how hard that is, how the parents never get any rest.
And then I try to imagine how much harder it would be if they were deaf.
Then I think about this little girl. This little blonde girl kicking my seat. She has two deaf parents, and an older brother who's mentally handicapped.
Her life is going to be challenging, to say the least.
Suddenly all these kicks don't seem like such a big deal. Now they start to feel like little cries for attention. I decide to think of them as love taps.
I can sleep later.
© 2006 Greg Tamblyn
Tamblyn’s music can be heard, and ordered, online at www.gregtamblyn.com.