On Our Way to Paris/The Boy Who Wouldn't Shut Up

It finally came! Diesel's and my trip to Paris. Catching the flight was quite stressful, as we had to get up at 5am on Sunday morning and drive down to Seattle from the Baker cabin. You see, our friends Rebeca, Steve and Heidi threw a big party at the cabin to celebrate their 40th, 40th, and 30th bdays, respectively, so on Sat afternoon Diesel and I made the 2.5 hr drive to Baker and, in a ambitious, yet utterly stupid plan, decided to drive back to Seattle at 5 so we could make a 7:30-8am stop at the Danskin triathlon to cheer on our friends Tarah and Regina, who were doing their first tri.

After gett pulled over by a cop but not getting a speeding ticket despite doing 57 on a 35mph road, we cheered Tarah on but missed Regina :(

Back at our apartment, we showered, grabbed our bags and got a ride from my sis to the airport. The flight to Chicago was a lovely flight in business class with a free meal and a separate bathroom from the plebe.

The Chicago to Paris flight, on the other hand was in economy class, which is fine cuz, as you can tell from the previous paragraph, I'm no snob. However, right off the bat this 7-year-old boy who was sitting next to us started talking. Yapping really. It was an ominous sign to a long and sleepless night.

I might exaggerate sometimes, but I kid you not when I tell you that the kid yapped non-stop from the time we took off to the time we landed. It was a 9-hour flight during which 8 hours were spent yapping away and one hour going to the bathroom and walking aimlessly in the forbidden aisles of business class, where he got kicked out of.

Anyhow, curiously enough; his mother, father and sister were all sitting in adjacent seats in the row in front of him. He was the only member of his OWN family that was sitting in the row next to ours. Did his mom KNOW something we didn't???

So as I mentioned and reitterated, the kid's yapping continued through the night, even after the lights went out and most of the passengers went to sleep. It got so bad that Diesel woke up from the little sleep he could get with the sole purpose of shushing the boy. Even after a loud SHHHHH the boy continued yapping--I guess in his defense I have to say that he turned it down a tad. But he did NOT, I repeat, did NOT stop talking.

The next morning breakfast was being served, and the flight attendants went around with the drinks cart. Upon being asked what he wanted, the boy said: "coffee."

COFFEE? COFFEE??? NO WONDER!!!!! The flight attendant was taken aback and had to confirm with the boy's mom that he was allowed to have some. Unfazed, the mother--who let me remind you, was NOT sitting next to her own son--replied with an emphatic "YES."

Judge me if you want, but it just seems unfair to me that a parent would give her already hyperactive kid nature's version of Red Bull and let him go wild on a night flight annoying the hell out of the other passengers (and by "other passengers" I mean ME), when what he really needed was a big dose of ridelin.

All I can say is that after that, French will never again be the language of l'amour et romance; instead, it'll be forever tarnished by the boy that wouldn't shut up.