Monday, 03 September 2001 | Little boy

There were a lot of things that could've gone wrong during my trip today, as I took three trains, one bus, and one airplane to get from Islip, New York to Raleigh, North Carolina. It happened to be the bus, which was probably the most difficult of the three for me to complicate. Somehow I missed both terminals A and B (A is what I wanted) and ended up getting off at C, a mistake that I paid for by having to lug three overstuffed bags down a long labrynth of hallways that tirelessly pointed me in the direction of the monorail. Prior to that, I'd sort-of paired up with an awkward but friendly man from Munich who was going to the same place, in an attempt to add two confused heads together to form one able and on-course head. He got off at terminal A without a word, apparently thinking I was following him, and I thought to myself, poor guy. I guess he'll figure out soon enough that he's disembarked at the wrong spot. Two terminals later I figured out who the poor soul really was.

The plane ride itself was good in that it took off and landed when it was supposed to. I was put in the front row, and, just after I'd gotten settled, an airport worker brought a seven-year-old boy on the plane, and asked him if he wanted to sit by me. We looked at each other, and I tried to look friendly, but he just said "um..." quietly (like the girl on the phone), making it clear he didn't want to sit there but that he didn't want to say no. The man said yes, that'll be fine, sit right there, and the boy quietly obeyed. I remember thinking, good, no small talk on this flight. I soon learned how wrong I was.

First he asked me what the little white bag was in the pocket in front of him. It's in case you get sick, I said. I'm gonna play with it!, he answered, and began using it as a puppet, demanding in a garbled voice that I open the door. He told me about his friend Charlie who drank water and made it come out of his nose. He kept a book in his lap called The Icky Sticky Frog which had a sticky elastic tongue tipped with a paper fly that was suspended from a picture of a frog on the front. Throughout the flight, he repeatedly pulled the tongue back and watched as it recoiled and snapped the frog in the face. When the pretzels came, he chewed the edges to form different letters of the alphabet. I know, because he showed me each one. Look! I made a Q. See this one? I made an I. Look! I made another Q. This one is an X, but if you turn it sideways, it can be a T.

The flight was only slightly over one hour, but my clock was moving very slowly.