Kids on Planes

A few years a ago I was in the Canary Islands and had a very mild cold, I wasn't even sneezing but my sinuses were blocked, I couldn't breath through my nose. I did what any reasonable person would do, I took some anti inflammatory tablets so I could breath. I problem was, I then chose to go diving (I know you shouldn't dive with a cold but it really was a mild one).

So as I was thirty meters bellow the surface, playing with manta rays that were a massive nine feet wide but seemed to move with the grace of Baryshnikov. This is were the trouble started, I didn't know this at the time but the nice anti inflammatories I took were wearing off, now this leads to the air (due to the depth, it would have been about four times normal pressure) that was currently in my sinuses would be stuck there! At this point, I start to come back up and as the air expands, the pain starts. I was a little uncomfortable but, in the grad scheme of things, it wasn't too bad, so mu so that I completely forgot about it until the next day when we were flying back.

As the plane climbed steadily to however many thousands of feet a plane climbs to, the pain just above my nose became worse. I felt like I was going to explode, I would have gladly paid somebody to stick a hot poker up there just to relieve some of the pressure. All of this would have been fine if it weren't for the five year old in the seat behind me who thought it would be really clever to scream at the top of his lungs and kick my chair constantly!

I did the only thing I could think of, I stuck my head over the back of the chair and gave the kid the meanest look I could muster and it worked! He went silent and stopped kicking, in fact he didn't start kicking until we were landing and I was so overjoyed by the fact that the pain was starting to go down that I said nothing.

I was reminded of this painful event on Friday when, on a plane, a baby was screaming her head off! This time, armed with a not so mean look (the pain must have helped me that day), my plan was to turn around and look the father in the eye. I turned and was faced with a small baby, making drool bubbles, looking back at me. She then smiles and I'm gutted to say I was completely disarmed by this, what could I do? I sat back down and just let it go. The baby cried from time to time but I was clearly powerless. I still trying to get over the fact that a baby with no motor skills could have such a calming effect on me, I fear maybe I'm just getting old.