The Fake Mile High Club

“Mommy? I need to pee,” Natalie said seriously.

I winced. “Natalie. You don’t want to pee in here. This is an airplane. Airplane bathrooms are scary. And small. And Mommy has indulged herself while we were visiting your grandparents so I’m not quite sure my butt would even squeeze into that tiny room with you. So if you could just hold it—”

“I.need.to.pee.” Natalie gave me her scary look. The one that said if I didn’t take her to the bathroom, that she’d pee all over herself and then scream about it the rest of the way.

I didn’t have a choice.

“Are you absolutely positive? It’s really small and there’s usually a smell. I don’t know how people join the mile high club. I mean, how would they manage?” I rambled. I ramble on airplanes because flying makes me nervous. Rambling helps me forget that I’m thousands and thousands of feet in the air and could pummel to the ground at any second.

“What’s a mile high club?” Tommy wondered, looking up from his Nintendo DS game.

Crap.

“It’s um…when people go into the airplane bathrooms and…play monopoly.”

It was the first thing that popped into my head. So great, now if anyone is like, “We can play Monopoly on board!” Tommy will say, “Oh cool, you’re joining the mile high club then.”

Fantastic.

“Pee, pee, pee,” Natalie chanted.

I sighed. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Tommy, you stay here.”

Normally I drag him along with us. But we were in an airplane. If someone took him, where would they go?

I led Natalie towards the bathroom. I’m not sure how, but we both squeezed inside of it.

And yes, there was a smell.

Plus a pee soaked tissue in the toilet.

Ew.

“Hurry it up,” I begged.

“I like it in here,” Natalie said happily. Of course she would. I mean, she thinks going to the dentist is pretty cool so why wouldn’t she be disgusted by an airplane bathroom?

When we go back to our seats, Tommy was still there and Natalie went, “The bathroom is cool, Tommy.”

Were we in the same one? I would not qualify it as cool.

We had to take a shuttle service back home when we landed. I was nervous about this, because driving with a stranger wasn’t my idea of fun. But this shuttle service works with the military a lot, so I figured we’d be safe. Still, I had my guard up when I found the guy. I was prepared to attack if need be. My purse was full of change, my suitcase was heavy, and my daughter had a scream that could pierce an eardrum.

He was nice though.

Only, when I first got into the car, I realized he had on one of those CDs that basically say, “Don’t focus on the negative. Focus on the positive. I visualized having a skirt one day and a week later, I had that skirt because I thought positively about it.”

Um.

I was a little nervous then. Who was this guy? Why was he making me listening to this?

“Have you heard about The Secret?” he asked.

I blinked wondering if he was coming on to me. Then I remembered a popular book coming out called The Secret. Or something. “I think so?”

“This is the CD from that.”

Oh. Well.

The lady on the CD was British and sounded a bit like Angela Landsbury. I wondered if she was still alive. She was so cute on Murder, She Wrote.

“Don’t use words like horrible, awful, or terrible,” Angela Landsbury told me. “Use words like wonderful, fantastic, and great.”

Oh my God. What if this guy was listening to this stuff to control his anger? To keep himself from lashing out and abducting us all?

Or what if this was how he lured his victims? By playing affirmations and then when they were lost in all the “think happy thoughts” bit, he struck?

I griped the handle of my purse in case I had to swing at him. What if he took us all into a ditch and left us there with the CD playing? Death by affirmations?

I nibbled on my fingernail as Angela Landsbury told me a story about how she visualized having flowers and then a bouquet showed up at her house a little while later.

So if I think about having tons of cash, a bunch will show up at my door next month?

Sweet.

I tried to calm myself down by playing Angry Birds on my iPod Touch. But the birds were making me angry when they wouldn’t do what I was asking them to do. And then I worried that I wasn’t paying enough attention to Affirmation Dude and figured I ought to stop playing. I needed to make sure he was taking me home and not someplace in the opposite direction.

Oh my God, he’s taking me to Longmont! Where is that? Where is—oh right, it’s on the way home. Phew. Everything is okay.

And everything was okay. We made it home and the house was still here with the contents inside of it, so I was pleased.

Though truth be told, I did have dreams of Angela Landsbury reminding me to think positive thoughts, because negative ones will get me no where.

Okay, Angela. I’ll think that even though I consume a lot of chocolate that it won’t make my thighs expand.

That’s positive, yes?