Born in the air- (repost due to story cutoff last time)
Monday, February 13, 2012 at 7:51PM It has been three months since we got an an airplane.
We arrive three hours early for our flight. This is one of my sicknesses. I hate the feeling of almost missing a plane and so I constantly drag Wendy & Co. along with my unreasonable early arrival fetish. By the end of the year I am usually worn down enough by airports that I will accept a two hour early arrival, but this is a new year guys.
We pass through security in about two minutes and have a lot of time to kill. Luckily, Wendy is a genius. Have you met her? You really should. She brings Legos, and what would otherwise be a trying wait turns into a really good time.
Wendy and kids sprawl out over a large section of the waiting lounge. The legos are strewn across the floor like bird seed. Several small hungry birds come to play. The three hours rush by. The kids have so much fun playing with the other kids that I have to pat myself on the back for our early arrival.
This does not endear me to my wife.
Soon we are mid-flight. Isaac and I nod off together.
I wake to a sheet hanging between the first row of seats and the front bathroom. A thin barricade. My sleep brain is confused.
I see a flight attendant stand guard and hear a request for blankets over the speakers. A tall thin man paces up and down the aisle. Occasionally he peaks around the sheet to see what is happening. The door to the cockpit opens and shuts. I am befuddled.
I hear Numbskull state that there is a woman giving birth as he reaches around the seat to shake my shoulder. (I am just meeting Numbskull, as are you, but his name suits him, trust me.) Since I had not had the pleasure of being formally introduced to Numbskull, I am confused as to why he is shaking me.
Numbskull takes out a camcorder. It is dark on the plane. The only lights are those showing the way down the aisle. He turns on the camcorder’s inexplicably bright light.
The effect is the same experienced by me in my New Jersey apartment years prior. (I am not just throwing out New Jersey to impress you, it is relevant. You will get it soon.) I returned home and slipped on the lights, and the floor crawled as cockroaches scurried from its beam. So also, the sleep filled passengers recoil from the bright spot light. Numbskull waves it back and forth as he wanders up the aisle ignoring the silent protests.
Upon arriving at the sheet, his hand and attached light rise up and tape the complete stranger mid-delivery. Yet, apparently rules of decorum for mid flight deliveries differ from those applied to hospital deliveries and the waiting father does not punch him through the face.
Numbskull then starts his own pacing. Back and forth between his row nine seat and the sheet. Each time he rises, he wrests my seat, shaking me violently.
Notwithstanding Numbskull, the delivery is amazing. The baby is out within thirty minutes of the mother laying down in the front. There are no screams from mother or child. No punches from father. Pure cuteness from baby.
We make an emergency landing in San Antonio. Numbskull suggests the baby be called Dallas upon landing (in San Antonio) (not Dallas).
A flight attendant holds up the baby for us to see. Loud applause. The mother walks off the plan with a cute little wave to the passengers. Louder applause.
Numbskull then marvels at what they were going to put as the place of birth on the certificate for the next two hours that the plane is on the ground waiting for clearance to resume flight.
Notwithstanding Numbskull, it is completely astounding. Or as he repeats at least 100 times, a miracle.
Reader Comments (18)
wow.
so cool.