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(Warning: do not read while eating lunch or if allergic to philosophical musings.)
The joys of Road Warriordom are many: cramped middle seats; endless flight delays; small, impossible-to-open bags of over-salted peanuts. Some days - thanks to delays, cancellations and ever-present bureaucratic stupidity - are worse than others.
And yet on a recent trip to Charlottesville, Virginia, things appeared to be humming along just fine. It was a beautiful spring day and we were right on schedule. Ours was a prop plane, but even that didn't dampen my mood - a longer flight, yes, but also a more leisurely approach into La Guardia and a chance to savor my favorite skyline.
There was, however, one little hitch: Prop planes mean turbulence. That doesn't bother me (I have a cast-iron stomach), but it clearly was a problem for the woman and toddler seated across the aisle.
I hadn't seen this much projectile vomiting since one of my sons outgrew the stage. He shall remain nameless (you have a 50/50 shot at guessing correctly, however), but let's just say that for the first two years of life he was known around the house as "Sir Barfalot."
But I didn't really mind; one good thing about being a parent is that it teaches you compassion. When something horrific happens to other people's children on a plane - whether that's temporary satanic possession or saturation vomiting - you're just so grateful that it's not your child and your public mortification that even if stray bits of chunder land on you, it's not a big deal.
That said, the scale of the resulting cleanup - only slightly smaller than BP's Macondolypse Now - made me wonder if mother and son would ever fly again.
Which was a stupid thought, I soon realized. I mean, what are the alternatives? By foot, by bicycle, by car, by bus, by train? All of these are impractical, take more time and, while generally less turbulent, come with their own share of risk.
It's kind of like investing: If you want to reach your final destination of a decent-sized nest egg, at a retirement age shy of three digits, you're going to risk throwing up along the way.
