We're back

We actually got back on Saturday evening. Landed in Buffalo a bit late, around 4:30. By the time we fooled around with baggage claim (which took ages), grabbed a snack, filled up the truck with cheap New York gasoline ($3.15 / gallon is much cheaper than it is in Ontario) and drove back home, it was about 7:30.

I posted earlier about the number of children on flights in to and out of Utah. That's still true. From Salt Lake to Chicago we had a family of 8 (6 kids plus parents) behind us. The kids weren't too terrible. A few unwelcome kicks to the back of our seats, but not much in the way of noise.

There weren't as many kids from Chicago to Buffalo, but one boy on that flight made up for a small army of other children. His name was Anthony. Anthony is about two years old. Anthony didn't want to sit down, fasten his seat belt, sit in his seat, or do anything that his mother asked him to. Notice that the operative term is ask. As in "Anthony, pleeeeease sit down and be a good boy for Mommy, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease???" And of course, Anthony's reply was "I DON'T WANNA!!!!!!!!!" And then he would proceed to pound on the back of Norah's seat.

Not wanting to spend time in a jail in Buffalo, I controlled the urge to forcefully place Anthony back in his seat against his will. Granted that Norah and I have a very low tolerance threshold for bratty children. We don't have any kids, and we don't feel that we should have to put up with anyone else's. I knew that Anthony was particularly bad when other parents on the plane started complaining about him. His mother finally managed to get him to be quiet by holding him on her lap, which elicited a round of applause from the other passengers. The stewardess informed Anthony's mother that Anthony would need to be in his own seat for landing, according to federal law. Anthony was nowhere near his own seat at the time of landing. I think he had managed to crawl under our seats by that point, in the space reserved for carry-on bags.

Let it be known that I am now a strong advocate for adults-only flights. Or at least sections. Like what they used to do for smokers, once upon a time.

"Will you be sitting in bratty offspring, or no bratty offspring?"