Once upon a time, when I was younger and living the dream of being a sportswriter (if, by dream, you mean sitting in tiny, cramped press boxes, eating semi-cooked hotdogs and watching kids who couldn't find the strike zone with a GPS), I used to fly to cover Razorback football games.
And when I did, I always reserved my seat in the smoking section. Planes used to have those, back when we figured making smokers sit in the back of a long, sealed tube somehow kept the carcinogens away from the people two rows ahead of them.
But I digress...
Anyway, even though I didn't (and still don't) smoke, I'd book my seat in smoking for one reason only: parents with small children never booked seats in smoking. So, for the three or four hours I would be hung up circling the airport in College Station while they shooed a cow off the runway, I wouldn't have to sit next to someone's kids. Because, while smoke never goes forward in an airplane, piercing screams and sobs never come back. OK, it wasn't great logic, but there it was.
However, life and love tend to catch up with us all, and a few years after my sports writing days, I found myself with the Lovely Mrs. Smith and two small children (mine, actually; I wasn't just picking up strays) on an airplane. Sitting next to us was a Busy Businesswoman Busy Being Busy, and when the kids had exhausted all the snacks, coloring books, games and other distractions we had carefully packed for them (I think we were actually getting ready to take off, so, a new record for us) and started fussing, she pointedly rose from her aisle seat and stomped off with an armful of papers, tossing back over her shoulder that she "couldn't work like this."
As she huffed off, I turned the the Lovely Mrs. Smith and commented, "I've just become the person I used to hate."
I tell you that story to tell you this: I don't want to become the person I hate.
You see, the last two of the progeny left at home both had birthdays earlier this month. And while the events marked milestones in their lives, they also moved both of them closer to the day when our housing, care and feeding of them becomes more by extension than by practice. Pardon me while I cry exactly no tears over that.
However, besides the obvious joy they bring to our lives (OK, only a slight note of sarcasm there), the one thing having children in your house (on purpose and not as part of some home invasion or infestation or something) does is provide you with perspective. Kind of like Jane Goodall living with the wild chimpanzees, except the chimps were probably cleaner and didn't leave one spoonful of ice cream in the container so they could say they didn't finish it all.
That perspective tends to spill over a bit, so that, when in contact with other teenagers, let's just say I can be a little more tolerant. More of that "managed expectations" thing.
Case in point: I tend to use self-checkout, mostly because, while people are OK, I guess, I sort of ... don't like to talk to them. So, the other day I cleverly over-thought my line selection and wound up at a machine that didn't have anyone else using it because it had run out of receipt paper.
Now the person in charge at the moment looked like experience wasn't exactly his long suit. In fact, he looked very much like his mom had driven him to work. That certainly didn't help either of us when he opened the machine and was greeted by what for all the world looked like a confetti canon being fired at close range.
It didn't make it any easier when, despite deft manipulations, multiple switch/lever flipping and an application of small ball pin hammer, the machine refused to accept the new roll of receipt paper. At this point, the young man began a) sweating profusely, b) shooting furtive glances my way and c) muttering 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" under his breath.
At that point a magical transformation took place. He was no longer some random kid trying to earn enough money for a motorcycle. He was my 17-year-old, trying to do the first job he ever had in his whole life, trying to be responsible and make everyone happy and coming face to face with one of life's realities -- namely that, despite your best efforts and training, stuff breaks. You can say "stuff." I tend to say something else, but it's a family paper.
Giving him a hug would have been odd, but I did what I hope was the next best thing. I said, "Hey, you're doing the best you can. Sometimes machines just don't want to play nice." And went back to reading in one of those checkout line magazines how the members of One Direction are actually space aliens. Which explains a lot.
Things may change. I'll certainly grow older, and not having kids at home may very well cause the memory of what it's like to see them try to make their way in a less-than-friendly and certainly intimidating world fade.
But I hope when I look at someone struggling to make a cash register do what she wants it to do or find the size I want or fix a balky checkout machine, I always remember that may not be my kid, but it's someone's. And that someone would probably appreciate it if did a little less grinding down and a little more building up.
If I would just remember not to turn into the person I kind of hate.
Commentary on 09/25/2015