Finnster

While walking through the terminal of Philadelphia International Airport on Saturday, I was happy to see that private lounges are open again. I like them for the quiet. I like them for the comfortable chairs. I use them to catch up on email, maybe listen to a stray podcast, send last minute texts, write and think. As I took the empty elevator up to the lounge, I marveled again at how quiet the airport was.

The joys of traveling when schools are in session are boundless.

The lounge was fairly empty, only a half dozen or so people sitting quietly and trying to work. I grabbed a cup of coffee and some fruit, but no sooner had I settled in the back corner of the lounge, all hell broke loose. Because in walked the ever-present Mom and Dad with the Four-Year Old Kid to shatter my early-morning reverie. The Mom and Dad with the Four-Year Old Kid always show up to shatter everyone’s reverie. It was almost comical how certain I was that it would happen. That they would look around the almost empty-lounge, spot me working quietly in the corner, and then plunk their act right down next to me at the adjacent table.

(If I’m on an empty beach, some jack-nod will plunk herself down right next to me. If I’m in an empty movie theater, some nimrod will sit down right in front of me. If I’m parked in an empty parking lot, some ass-stick will park right next to me. I’m sure it has something to do with energy, physics, and time-continuum. But it happens to me everywhere I go).

Don’t misunderstand me. This is America, money is money, and those parents have just as much of a right to be there as I do. But I can’t think of an occasion in my life when I would have ever felt it necessary to bring my pre-school aged child into a private lounge where people are trying to work, network and engage in business. I would have been too embarrassed, and way too respectful of business people. Eggs Benedict, croissants, special Wi-Fi, mimosas? Really? For a kid who eats Cheerios off the ground? Your four-year old needs this luxury?

It is a different time.

The kid’s name is usually Hunter, or Noah, or Liam, and he’s usually crying. He is an only child, and since he is used to having his needs met immediately, he doesn’t fuck around. He wants what he wants the way he wants it, and he wants it yesterday. He has his own personalized luggage, and a Paw Patrol backpack. Or Doc McStuffins. Or whatever character that the Disney channel is selling as cartoon-crack at the time. Hunter/Noah/Liam is always precocious, he is always adorable and he is always naturally manipulative.

On this recent morning, the child’s name was Finn, and mom and dad ran back and forth to the buffet a minimum of twenty times. Dad, who looked wistfully towards the bar he so keenly wanted to patronize, kept chanting. “Isn’t this special place cool, Finn? Isn’t this awesome? Isn’t this fun, Finny? Are you happy, Finn? Are you happy?”

Mom, wearing mom jeans and sneakers, with her hair in a thin, blonde, stumpy ponytail, rapidly fired a series of rhetorical questions at Finn.

“Did you like those special eggs, baby? Do you want oatmeal? How about toast? A bagel? Fruit? Apple juice? A sweet? You can have anything you want in this special lounge, Finnster.”

Money and luxury thrown away on a little kid with plastic light-up shoes and snot running down his face, and who will never remember it anyway. All parents have done it. We’re all guilty of it. The spacious rooms with jacuzzi tubs, the fancy Disney hotels, the character breakfasts, the all-inclusive park passes, and all they remember is the hotel pool and the time when dad pushed them to the elevator on the wheeled luggage rack.

The Finnster threw grapes. The Finnster threw hummus. The Finnster spilled his apple juice, twice. His loud, messy act took over the whole lounge, and pissed off all the businessmen who pay fees in order to have the right to sit in this lounge and avoid kids like Finn. The parents apologized over and over to the lounge attendant (whose job isn’t crappy enough, now she had to get down on her knees and scrape chickpeas off the expensive carpet).

“We’re making such a mess, we’re so sorry, we’re so sorry,” mom said. “Finny, thank the nice lady for cleaning up your mess, and promise her you will be more careful.”

That beautiful baby boy smiled malevolently and answered, “Finn is gone. You can call me Damien Thorn.”

Damn, what happened to the good ol’ days of traveling with little kids? I’m not even talking about the trips I went on with my parents, those free-falling unsecured spirals into space without seatbelts in the family station wagon with my head up Barbie’s butt and my feet on the grill grates. I mean the days when Mom and Dad waited at the gate and let their kids nosh down on Cinnabons and Skittles and candy bars and Coke, while they took turns watching the baby and doing tequila shots at the bar?

Now THAT’S parenting.

By the time Finny/Damien gave his parents clearance to pack up and make their way to the gate, I had by that time moved away from them. But as they walked past me, highly disgruntled and crumpled with sweat and ire, with Hunter’s shoes lighting up with every step, I heard Dad mutter to Mom.

“Great idea. He would have been just as happy with a doughnut.”

There’s hope.