by Heather Klassen
“Looks like we won’t be going anywhere tonight,” my dad says, returning from the ticket counter. “All the flights are cancelled. We can’t even get back home. The roads are all closed.”
“What?” I ask, bolting upright in my uncomfortable plastic airport chair. We’d been sitting here for half the day already, waiting through delay after delay.
“I just told you, Alex,” my dad explains again. “We’re snowbound. Another one of those storms of the century.”
“So we won’t be getting to Phil’s for Thanksgiving dinner,” my mother helpfully points out.
“Maybe we’ll get out of here sometime tomorrow.” My dad shrugs, then slumps into his chair. “Might as well make ourselves comfortable.”
I would laugh at that if I weren’t so thoroughly bummed.
Thanksgiving at my Uncle Phil’s ski lodge is the best possible vacation. We go every year and ski the best slopes and eat the best food and then eat and ski some more. But not this year. This year we get to spend Thanksgiving sitting in a crowded airport terminal, dining on lousy airport terminal food.
“This is so lame!” I practically shout as my fist slams onto the table next to me.
“Alex!” my mom practically shouts back. “Calm down! There’s nothing we can do about the situation, so just relax.”
Well, I’m not going to relax. Maybe there’s nothing I can do about being cheated out of my Thanksgiving vacation, but no one can stop me from being angry about it.
I slump into my seat and stare at my fellow stranded travelers. The usual assortment of grandparents, college students, families with little kids. I’m sure everyone is just as bummed as I am at having their plans ruined.
The family sitting straight across from me consists of a youngish looking couple and a baby. As I stare sullenly ahead, I watch the baby being fed a bottle, then bounced around by its mother, then carried off to the restroom by dad, presumably heading to the changing table. As the baby returns, decked out in pajamas now, my dad appears in front of me.
“Here, Alex,” he says, offering me a styrofoam tray. “I bought you some pizza. Your favorite kind.”
“Gee, thanks, Dad,” I reply as I take the tray. “Pepperoni. My favorite Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Hang in there, Alex,” Dad says. “Maybe we’ll be able to salvage at least part of the weekend.”
I don’t reply, instead biting into my soggy slice.
The minutes, then hours, of excruciating boredom tick by. People talk, rustle magazine pages; kids chase each other through the aisles. I just sit and sulk. Finally, the terminal lights dim and the noises subside as first the kids, then the adults, drop off to sleep, either in their uncomfortable airport chairs, or laid out on the floor, using coats for pillows and covers.
I watch the youngish couple across the aisle arrange the baby in its carrier thing for the night, then huddle up together and go to sleep. My parents are sleeping, so is just about everyone else. So I give in and let myself drift off.
I don’t know how long I sleep, but when I suddenly wake up again, the terminal is totally quiet. Everyone is sleeping except me.
Well, no, not everyone. The baby across the aisle in the carrier thing is awake. I can see its face by the light shining in from the deserted runways outside. I can see that the baby’s eyes are open and looking right at me.
Stiff from sleeping in my plastic chair, I ease myself down onto the floor. Now I’m closer to the baby. The blue blanket with the trucks parading across it clues me in to the idea that this baby is probably a boy baby. And he’s watching me intently.
“Hey,” I say softly.
The baby smiles at me.
“What are you smiling about, buddy?” I whisper. “You’re in the same predicament as me. On your way to somewhere great for Thanksgiving, probably to the grandparents who were planning to spoil you rotten, and now look, you’re stuck in this airport terminal instead.”
Not too surprisingly, the baby doesn’t answer. He just keeps gazing at me with that look of contentment on his face.
Watching the baby, I try to see things from his point of view. He doesn’t actually care about great vacation trips, or the snow piling up outside imprisoning us in this room. He’s warm and dry (I assume), fed and safe, and here with the two people who love him more than anything else in the world, who would do anything in the world to keep him safe and happy.
I glance over at my slumped together snoozing parents, my pizza crusts on the styrofoam tray, the four walls and roof keeping me warm and safe and dry.
I look back at my new little buddy. “You’re kind of small,” I whisper, “but it seems that you may have things figured out better than I do.”
But our conversation is coming to an end. The baby’s eyes droop, then close, as he drifts off again.
Looks like a plan, I think, as I roll myself up in my jacket. I stretch out on the floor, waiting for sleep to catch me again. But this time I’m not going to sleep angry. The basics are covered, actually way more than covered if I really think about it, and I’m fine with it now. So, warm and dry, fed and safe, my new little buddy and I are down for the night.
