Occasionally, I travel with the world traveler to keep him company and keep him out of airport jail. True story.
Coming home from South Korea, I was able to talk him down off a ledge when we landed in the Detroit International Airport only to have to stand in a line that was one hundred and fifty-seven deep, to wait for TWO surly guys to stare at our passports and grunt. Being in Detroit was like being in a foreign country with bad plumbing.
My husband, the world traveler, stood in the middle of the endless line of weary, slightly smelly, fellow world travelers and said, “This is %&^*ed up.” Really loud. I remember because my eyebrows hit my hairline with a thud. My husband does not curse—ever—even for a good joke.
On a recent trip to Washington, DC for our thirty-plus year anniversary, my husband, the world traveler, navigated security, dashed through check points, yanked out ID like a guy with a cable show on the travel channel and dragged me along like a slightly larger version of a cat in a cat carrier. We were savvy travelers.
We were savvy travelers, right up to the point when he whipped out our airline tickets from his front shirt pocket and a binky tumbled out.
I looked down at the lonely pacifier on the nasty airport terminal floor and said, “Babe, is that your binky?”
We looked down and stared.
The binky looked lonely and familiar all at the same time.
The ultra cool world traveler said, “Yeah.” He looked around. “Doesn’t look like it belongs to anyone else.”
We were surrounded by ultra cool, world traveler types; they were checking their email and Facebook updates. A hamster could have fallen out of his pocket and no one would have noticed.
“It’s Gummy’s,” he said.
“Do you think that kid’s ever going to be called by his given name?” I vaguely remembered liking our youngest grandson’s real name. I just couldn’t remember what it was.
“Nope. He’s the baby.” He picked up the binky and tucked it back in his pocket. We traveled on.
One of the important lessons I’ve learned over the past three decades is that just about the time that you think you’ve reached a state of super cool, world traveler status you lose your binky right there in front of everybody. It’s like writing a story about achieving the state of “cool” and realizing you’ve spelled cool with a ‘K.’
Linda (Suck on This) Zern
