Snot-nosed Brats in Phoenix

January 20, 1994

I knew I was in trouble when I got on this flight to Phoenix, because no sooner had I settled into my seat than a woman with crazed eyes and a screaming infant fell into the two adjoining seats, along with diapers and bottles and toys and half-chewed cookies and various other parephenalia. Apparently the woman had just gotten off another long flight, and her daughter (who appeared to be about a year and a half old) had just fallen asleep before the mother had to wake her and rush from one end of the terminal to the other in order to catch our flight. Needless to say, the little girl was not at all pleased by the turn of events, and she was howling at the top of her lungs as she came down the aisle. She took one look at me, snot running down her face, and proceeded to start kicking me as hard as she could. The mother rolled her eyes, but had clearly given up ...

Fortunately, the plane wasn't completely full, and I managed to escape to another section a few seats away. The baby continued to screech for a full hour after we took off, before she collapsed from exhaustion. Meanwhile, the pilot has been coming on the radio every ten minutes to tell us the progress of the Super Bowl. Great groans and cheers from the passengers as Buffalo's forturnes have ebbed and flowed. I don't really care about football that much, and really don't care who wins -- but it's an odd feeling to be so isolated from an event that obviously creates more "togetherness" in this country than Christmas.

This week's trip will take me to a warmer climate than Chicago, where I spent all last week. Fortunately, Chicago was only moderately miserable, with a normal barrage of snow and ice -- instead of the minus-20 temperatures they had had the week before. I stayed in one of the grand old Hiltons, built back in the 20s with wide corridors, high ceilings, and an extravagance of space that you don't see any more ... but they've modernized the hotel, and it's now an odd cominbation of high-tech and old charm. The last time I stayed there (about a year ago), I was issued one of the plastic credit-card-size room keys, with a magnetic stripe that has to be swiped through the door lock. The damn thing didn't work, no matter how many times I tried; when I called the front desk for help, they acknowledged that they had been having problems with the new locks, and would send up a repairman.

Sure enough, a burly repair fellow showed up at my door a few moments later, carrying a bag full of tools. He proceeded to pull out a two-foot crowbar, which he wedged into the door-jamb to pop open the door. When he confessed to me that he had had to do the same thing to about a dozen other doors that day, I asked why the front desk didn't just give all their guests a personal crowbar. The man was incensed: "This takes real skill," he said huffily.