For many families, the holidays mean travel. And because neither the United States Postal Service, UPS nor FedEx, allow children to be boxed and sent to Grandma’s––even in boxes marked Fragile and not even with plenty of air holes punched in (ok, so I may have checked into it)–– traveling can mean air travel.
Flying with children is sort of like the Super Bowl for me. I train for our travel all year as I run my tiny team through the drills––taking shoes on and off for security, walking in formation while pulling suitcases, using the public restroom and not playing in the feminine hygiene waste receptacle. As I enter the airport for the Big Game, I can feel my heart rate pick up and the adrenaline start to flow.
Now, because my husband is a professional air traveler (also known as a pilot), for him traveling as a family during the holidays is an entirely different process. His usual experience with travel involves a small-wheeled bag and a cup of Starbucks’. As he walks briskly to his gate in uniform, travelers eye him with admiration and importance. He gives professional, knowing nods to other passing pilots. And when he finishes his flying responsibilities, he wheels his bag out to the curb and is met by pre-arranged transportation, which will drop him at his hotel where he will kick up his feet and order room service.
As I watch the man in jeans with a sixty-pound diaper bag, four car seats strapped to his body, and a look of terror in his eye, I realize traveling as a family is a whole different game for my husband and is pretty much equivalent to telling Peyton Manning he will be playing middle line backer in the Super Bowl, and oh, by the way, he will play with four Oompa-Loompas strapped to his back.
Needless to say, three escalators, two trams, one airport security line, thirteen bags of salty snacks, eight cups of apple juice, six trips to the airplane lavatory, five states and zero cups of Starbucks later, my husband was certainly out of his traveling element. It’s also why when we found ourselves at baggage claim with four (very) hyper children under the age of four, one stroller, six suitcases, two back packs and four car seats—we realized we had a problem. With all my team drills and Big Game preparation, I had not prepared a game plan for exactly how we would maneuver all our children and gear to the rental car pick-up three miles down the road–– and neither had my husband, who is accustomed to a life of luxury travel.
We were left standing in the middle of the now empty baggage claim terminal with our mountain of family and stuff. The children were running around like the cracked-out lollipop guild.
“How the heck are we going to get the rental car?” my husband asked. He appeared a little stressed. I was a little taken aback that he was deferring to me for “travel advice” as he was the professional. I thought through our options and brightened when I saw a pushcart kiosk over his shoulder.
“Well, we could get a pushcart and load it up and push our stuff out to the curb. I’ll wait with the kids and our stuff while you go get the car and bring it around.” It was a brilliant idea and in my mind I gave myself a gold star sticker for thinking of it.
I watched my husband consider the plan and he walked over to the cart kiosk. He promptly returned without a cart and stood in front of me with a blank look on his face.
“Well?” I asked, wondering why he had not returned with a cart.
“We can’t get a cart,” he said looking more than a little harried.
“Why not?” I asked, thinking maybe the cart kiosk was broken.
“It costs four dollars,” he said matter-of-factly.
I stared at him dumbfounded and wondered if he had suffered brain damage when he hit his head on the overhead compartment.
“Ok …” I found myself speaking in an unfamiliar voice that was slow and rational. “The way I see it, we have two options. We can pay the four dollars and get a cart to move our stuff, or we can live here at baggage claim forever.”
And then I watched as my husband stood in front of me and actually considered whether or not living in baggage claim forever was worth four dollars. During that time, I assessed our options since there was apparently a very good possibility we would, in fact, live in baggage claim forever. We could get food from the vending machines; we could each sleep on a rental car counter; there were bathrooms with plenty of feminine hygiene waste receptacles to keep the children occupied. It could work, I thought to myself.
Finally, after a long period of deliberation, my husband turned and went to retrieve a pushcart. Relieved that it appeared we would not be living in baggage claim, I grabbed my toddler off the luggage conveyer belt just before she passed through the plastic streamers of the exit.
My husband walked back up without a pushcart. By this point the bewilderment on my face asked the question.
“I put in my credit card and it didn’t dispense a pushcart,” was his explanation. And then he asked me what we should do. Again, I was surprised he was deferring to my judgment. Again, I was surprised at the lapse in his problem solving skills. Mostly I was surprised in this infrequent reversal of roles, where I was the one operating as the rational adult.
“Well, maybe we could try the card again?” I asked sweetly.
“What! I don’t want to pay eight dollars!” he said, his voice rising an octave.
I just stared at him. After a moment, he turned on his heel and huffed back to the cart kiosk and returned with a pushcart and a look of irritation that ensured I kept my thoughts on the whole ordeal to myself.
We packed up the pushcart and wheeled our caravan out to the curb. My husband rode the shuttle over and picked up our rental van while I kept the children from playing human frogger in the traffic loading lanes. As I thought about the whole baggage claim ordeal I wondered if I should be concerned my husband was the type who would hesitate to shell out four or even eight dollars for the sake of our family. But when he pulled up in a minivan, installed four car seats and children and loaded all our bags, I noticed his look of despondence was replaced with a look of triumph. I knew he had paid a much greater price in pride and effort in the Big Game of family air travel.
“You look happier now,” I commented as we drove our team away from the airport.
“Yeah, I was able to call the kiosk company and get my four dollars refunded,” he said with the kind of grin I’d expect to see on the quarterback’s face after winning the Super Bowl.
