Spilled

Strangely, I seemed to be the only one who noticed.  Not his mother, or the people sitting adjacent to him.  Not the airline staff, or the people sitting next to me - and we had a bird’s eye view.  It was obvious to me what was going to happen, and soon.  Precariously perched, as it was, on the armrest of the chair currently occupied by the soon to be perp, it was a matter of when not if, the bottle would be toppled.

The bottle in question was nearly as tall as the young boy for whom it had been purchased and was filled with milk.  Strawberry flavored milk.  Under the best of circumstances, it would have been hard to imagine this child negotiating the girth and weight of this bottle to his mouth without incident.  Nevertheless, his mother, remaining utterly clueless as the scene unfolded, cheerfully opened the gargantuan jug and placed it on the armrest, with the helpful instructions to the boy, “Now drink your milk, sweetie.”

Adding to the folly, the child’s grossly overestimated coordination skills were now being further challenged by the introduction of an adult-sized breakfast on what was, arguably a platter not a plate, complete with an adult-sized knife and fork (his father, who delivered the fare and utensils, apparently suffered from the same inappropriate portions disability as did the boy’s mother).  It was only minutes before something had to give.


I was half expecting a medium sized, well-armed S.W.A.T. team to storm the concourse to extricate the knife from the boy, which accompanied the meal.  After all, it wasn’t five minutes ago that I was nearly dragged to the floor and beaten senseless by several non-English speaking, baggage screening geniuses who mistook my eyeglasses for a small thermo-nuclear device.  They threatened to confiscate my glasses because they were too stylish, at least that is what I was able to glean from the rapid-fire clucking sounds these stewards of our national safety were making to one another.  When calmer heads, and their English speaking mouths, were called to intervene, it turned out that it wasn’t my fashionable glasses that caused such an uproar, rather it was their titanium construction.  Given the level of scrutiny and the number of people involved, now totaling six, you would have thought that titanium had just been invented yesterday and that I was “springing” it on the unsuspecting world today.


Eventually, the thoroughly inspected spectacles were released, unharmed, to my custody, and we, my glasses and I, were allowed to proceed into the airport where I was now faced with a small foreign child wielding a knife.  I concluded that the knife, being, as it were, behind the mote, must not have been made of titanium, or in any way resembled eyewear. 

I thought about how strange it was that this was the first knife of any kind I had seen inside the airport since security had been tightened due to the events of 9/11 and it was in the unskilled hands of a small boy and about to become a contributing factor in a minor mishap.  With the boy wrestling with the plate as large as his lap, one tiny hand grasping the knife, giving you the impression it was twice the size of a normal knife, and the other clenching the bottle and his natural preoccupation with the Buzz Lightyear backpack, complete with lights, the milk bottle never stood a chance.  To his credit, and to the surprise of all the witnesses, the first drink of milk went off with out a catch.

The small boy, unlike his mother, seemed actually to be aware of the magnitude of the task and brought his limited faculties to bear.  The second drink was not as successful.  Not only was the milk bottle toppled from its stand, to come crashing down splashing anyone within a twelve foot radius, but the full order of eggs, bacon and toast, less the one small bite the boy managed to eat before the melee ensued, was launched equally as far.  A bit further, I might add, than even I had anticipated making me, by way of my milk covered shoes, more involved in this situation than I had hoped for.  The entire waiting area at the airlines was thrown into a state of panic as business travelers and tourist scrambled to brush food and drink off their clothes and out of their hair.

The shocked look on the boy’s face was soon replaced by loud crying and tears.  Between his sobbing and the soiled passengers brushing and stomping off debris, I could barely hear the announcement from the airline staff that our flight was ready to board.  No one else could hear it either, or simply didn’t care, as they were preoccupied with cleaning the small bits of food and damping the milk from their clothes.  It was only after the third announcement that the crowd began to refocus their energies from the emergency laundry activities they were engaged in to gathering their bags to get on the plane.

Meanwhile, the boy, who did not escape the spray from his fallen bottle, sat dripping of milk and sobbing.  His mother, undisturbed by the egg on her face, appropriately enough, and the dagger-looks being cast her way from everyone, sat calmly finishing her breakfast.  After a few moments, she said to the boy, “I’ll get you another just like it after we get on the plane, dear.”