Leaving Las Vegas, Part III

The sun was peeking through the thick hotel blinds. I turned over and looked at the clock. 6:09. I’d been asleep for about six hours. We didn’t need to check out until noon, but there was no getting back to sleep now; my mind was already too pre-occupied with what lay ahead of us today: getting out of Las Vegas.

I hefted myself out of the bed, careful not to disturb Trinity, next to whom I had slept last night because David insisted on having mommy sleep with him. Her breathing was slow, deep, and steady, as was David’s in the other bed. Nancy had buried her face under the covers. I assumed she was still breathing, too.

I padded slowly and quietly around the dark room looking for my pants, socks, and sweater. I got dressed in the bathroom. When I came out, Trinity was starting to wake-up. She stretched, rolled over, looked over to where I was standing and said, “I want some juice.” I told her that I would go get some if she would just lay quietly in bed until I got back. “I will,” she said. So I found my wallet, checked for the room key, slipped on my shoes, and made my way down to the lobby.

When I returned, the room was a little brighter than it had been when I left and I could see what there was of our stuff – strewn about like it belonged to a 70s metal band on a one-night stand. I half expected Robert Plant to come swaggering out of the bathroom, but the hot pink glare of Trin’s Hello Kitty backpack snapped me back to reality. Trinity was lying in bed, just as I’d asked her to do. Nancy was waking up, too. David was still out cold.

We took showers, the kids watched cartoons, we re-packed our things and headed down to the café for breakfast. We ordered up some scrambled eggs, toast, hash browns, and bacon for the lot of us, with two healthy cups of coffee for me and Nancy. The scrambled eggs achieved a quality I didn’t know existed in nature: both powdery and wet. I have no idea how they accomplished this, but it was truly stomach turning (and I’m not too picky when it comes to things like that). Trin, of course, loved them; she devoured her share and part of David’s. For his part, Dave stuck to bacon and toast, as they were easier to manipulate with his one good hand.

Between sips of coffee and pleas for David to get back to his seat, Nancy informed me that one of her shoes had blown out last night while we were in the clinic. The stitching on the side had completely given way rendering the already open, clog-like structure to become completely untenable. It was basically a flip-flop without the handy toe thing. I suggested that we call a cab and go to the mall that I had seen on the way in last night. She refused, saying that a trip to the mall in a cab with the two chunchkins (part chump, part munchkin) was more than she could bear. Plus, it would be a waste of money. She just wanted to get home. I bussed the table while Nancy took the kids over to “look at” a model train that encircled the Christmas tree in the lobby. Despite explicit instructions to “look with their eyes,” by the time I got there, they had managed to tag-team Nancy and bring all railway operations to a complete halt. In the words of Sir Topham Hat, they had “caused confusion and delay.”

We ushered them back onto the elevator, went up to our room, gathered up our things, and then headed back down to the lobby to await the shuttle to the airport. It was only 11:00, and our flight wasn’t until 3:35, but we had decided to just get to the airport, find a locker for our stuff, and try to relax. We waited for the shuttle outside on a bench next to a little structure that housed a trashcan. David and Trinity decided that it was a perfect replica of a coffee shop and proceeded to be our baristas. The trashcan itself served as the espresso machine. We were too tired to care what they were touching.

On the way to the airport, I suggested that there had to be a place in the airport where Nancy could buy a cheap pair of replacement shoes, just to get her through the flight. I was both right and wrong. There was one. They sold two kinds of clothing: Harley Davidson gear, and mid-to-high-end Ladies Night Out in Vegas gear. Because the airport only has lockers by the gates, not in the main shopping/ticketing/food-court area, we had to get a Smart Cart for all our carry-on items and Dave while Nancy weaved through the store with Trin. She found a pair of shoes she liked – a pair of black Harley Davidson sneakers with only a very subtle HD insignia. Nothing in her size. She found another pair, slightly more garish, but still acceptable for a 3-hour flight. Nothing. Meanshile, I’m running out of ways to keep David happy and aboard the Smart Cart. There’s only so fast you can run yelling “Wheeee!” and “KACHOW!” in a crowded airport without calling negative attention to yourself.

Nancy worked her worked her way down to a cheap pair of light brown moccasin-like shoes that matched her black outfit not at all, and made me ask her where the next Mahjong game was. She scowled. She threw her old shoes in a trashcan outside the store and off we went to security so that we could get to our gate and finally stow our increasingly cumbersome load.

Now, the security thing is bad enough on your own, but with two kids and backpacks that they cannot carry added on it’s less than efficient. But we were getting pretty good at it. This time, though, the gods decided to increase the level of difficulty. “Let’s have them all get flagged for the full pat down/bag check!” “Yes, let’s!” I hope the gods peed their pants watching David and Trinity get frisked. To their credit, the security guards were as perplexed as we were. For their part, Dave and Trin thought it tickled – and, quite frankly, it does…a little anyway.

We finally found a locker, stuffed our bags in there and went to get some food. We still had a little more than three hours to go before our flight. After a quick Sbarro lunch we settled down near our gate and began the process of entertaining our kids for three hours. Of course, the most entertaining looking thing in the Las Vegas airport is slot machines. And did you know that people under 21 are not allowed within 10 feet of the slot machines? This means that anyone with kids pretty much has to sit against the windows and not move. To be honest, they’re not too strict about it, but I did make the mistake of stopping to look at a machine for a little too long. I had asked Trin which one I should play. She picked the one with lots and lots of purple lights. (I never did play, by the way).

And so we waited while, little by little, the kids broke down to whining, crying, whirling lumps of napless flesh. A few people smiled in our direction. One couple even sat near us. Most people just cast suspicious glances our way. And we kept both kids away form those blasted poles. I think we actually confused some folks with our militant stance about touching the damn things. I’m convinced that there are people, regular Southwest fliers, who are now afraid to touch the poles.

They made the announcement that the plane would be delayed about 20 minutes before we were supposed to be taking off.

We finally did get on the plane. I followed Trinity down the aisle, keeping her headed toward the back. She stopped and talked to most people. I kept having to stop, bend down a little, and tell her to keep going. David, who was right behind me, announced during one of these stops: “Yuck! Daddy smells like pee-pee.” Thank you, son. Right back at you.

We found a row that we could have to ourselves: Trin and I on one side of the aisle, David and Nancy on the other. In front of me and Trin was a young couple with a girl about Trin’s age. We took off and everything was fine. Nancy and David were busy with a puzzle and Trin was playing with Play-Doh. Trin’s Play-Doh method involves a lot of banging on the table – in this case, the try table. Apparently, this was disturbing the woman in front of her who was holding her angelic sleeping child. This made total sense – I had been hoping it wasn’t the case, but it was – and I asked Trin to stop. “NO!” she yelled when I took the lump of Play-Doh from her hand. “NO!” she yelled louder when I put the cap back on. “SHHHHH!” I scolded, and chucked the yellow plastic container over to Nancy. “Take it. Hide it.”

Trinity was now kicking and yelling, tears streaming down her face. The nice woman behind us reached over and handed me a package of crackers. “Here, this might help. I’ve got five, I know what it’s like. She’s beautiful.” I took the crackers and gave them to Trin who said “Thank you” as sweetly as any two-year old could. “Do you want to sit on my lap?” I asked. “Yeah.” So, she climbed up on my lap, put her left arm on my right shoulder, and laid her head on my left shoulder. “It’s OK, Trin,” I said, patting her on the back.

And then I felt something I hadn’t felt since I was in second grade. A sudden warm sensation.

“Ah, damnit!” I said way too loud.

“What?” said Nancy.

“She just peed on me!” I hissed.

Over the course of the next couple of minutes, I somewhat angrily changed Trin out of her busted pull-up and wet pants and into a fresh pull-up and the pants she had wet the day before. Of course, then I had to go throw the damn thing away in the lavatory which required that I walk to the back of the plane, passing by dozens of crotch-level faces all getting a up-close and personal look at my urine soaked pants. The flight attendants were at the back of the plane and so I felt compelled to explain the situation to them, lest they too think that I was the incontinent one. Frankly, the soaking wet, bowling-ball heavy pull-up in my hand should have been a sure give-away, but when your crotch is covered with urine that is not your own, you just want the world to know the truth.

I walked gingerly back to me seat and decided that it was time to try and get Trin to sleep. By this time, though, she was beyond tired, and had entered that phase where anger and resentment trump sleep. I picked her up and tried to walk the aisle with her, but she fussed and kicked so much that I gave up. Nancy decided she’d give it a try since she was much calmer than I was. I sat down next to David who seemed content to have me help him with the puzzle that he was working on. Nancy went to the back of the plane and I played with David.

I thought things were going well enough, and then David announced that he wanted mommy. I told him that mommy was with Trin right now but that she would be back. I was here though. “MOMMY!!!”

He didn’t just yell it. He screeched it. At the top of his little lungs. It was piercing, alarming, upsetting. I picked him up and scolded him (my anger having worked its way to the very surface of my being). Nancy came back with Trin still kicking and fussing. We exchanged utterly defeated looks, and exchanged kids, too. I walked angrily to the back of the plane with Trin, while Nancy sat next to David who proceeded to throw a tantrum fit for a tiny, maniacal badger. It was epic. The flight attendant gave me one look and said, “You guys need a drink.” “Something,” I said. “I’ll be fine,” I added, suddenly feeling as though I might actually cry. “She looks tired,” said the attendant. “Yeah, I hope so,” I replied.

Within a couple of minutes, Trin was sound asleep. Nancy and I traded places at the back of the plane. She had David down within another few minutes.

Exhaustion had taken its toll on everybody.

The flight attendant came by our seats and asked what we wanted to drink. We ordered up two gin and tonics. She brought them over to us within a few minutes and said they were on her. I think she may have waved the cap of the tonic bottle over the cup of gin, but not much more. Five minutes later, a familiar calm had settled over me. Nancy looked over at me, opened her eyes wide, titled her head back, and sighed.

Two hours later, Dave and Trin still sleeping, each across two seats, covered in thin blue airline blankets, we touched down in Indianapolis. The process of unloading woke them up. Their sleepy faces betrayed no hint of the chaos that had reigned not two hours before. Our luggage awaited us at the Southwest counter by baggage claim.

The kids awoke little by little and talked all through the hour-long drive back to Terre Haute. They were happy and peppy. We walked in the door just after midnight, greeted by Peanut who was SO glad to se us she almost jumped out of her skin.

We didn’t get the kids back to sleep until 2 a.m. But the nap on the plane had cured what ailed them. They were their old charming, mostly agreeable selves.

It was the new year. All was forgiven, if not forgotten.