I've been saving this one for years.
If you've done much flying, you'll understand perfectly.

Quote:
NOW LISTEN UP, LITTLE SCREAMERS
by Steve Marmel


NEW YORK - I was flying one early morning on TWA, which on this particular junket stood for "turbulent while airborne," and all that thrashing about was making the children on board a tad unruly.

The adults on the plane, myself included, just wanted to sleep. It's not that we despise children, we just despise children in airplanes.

If parents think a safety seat is protection for their kids, they'd be even smarter to keep them from people like myself: frightened, edgy and tense at 35,000 feet. The tolerance-to-altitude ratio is of inverse proportions. This flight was a case study as to why there should either be an airline devoted solely to screaming children or kiddie seats bolted to the wings.

There were two of them, a little boy and a little girl, who were running laps in the cabin. They'd dart back and forth, then fight: "I won!" "No! I won!"

They would cry for their mother who, rolling underneath the felt napkin airlines call a blanket, whispered, "Let mommy sleep."

That phrase acted as a starter pistol, and the next lap began.

Everybody was getting annoyed. A few travelers stuck their feet into the aisle, but the kids took the hurdles like pros.

Finally, I leaned out of my seat, asking, "Ma'am, could you calm your kids down?" Several weary travelers grunted in agreement.

"They're obviously bored," she said, sending them on another lap. "Why don't you tell them a story?"

Bad move. The boy and girl sat down next to me, and while I may have been a little severe, I make no apologies (sleep deprivation does that to a person).

"This is the story," I said quietly, "of the little boy and little girl who wouldn't shut up!"

I'm not certain how the middle went, but I ended it with, "and the angry crowd killed the little children and placed their heads on sticks!"

There was a moment of sweet and total silence before the kids screamed the kind of scream that shatters glass.

The kids bolted back to their mom (the boy won), asking all sorts of questions about mob rule. When the mother exited the plane, she had those raccoon eyes, hinting she'd stayed awake the rest of the flight.

No one was certain. We all slept like babies.


If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracle of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.
- Lyndon Johnson, on signing the Wilderness Act into law (1964)