Ten minutes to boarding the plane and I find out there is free wireless at McCarrin airport. I’m flying into Rockford Ilinois. It’s an hour ouside of Chicago. Rockford is the town that my mother is from and that my grandparents lived the majority of their lives in. It’s 10:30 in the morning. I have the sick queasy feeling I get every time I fly. It’s part stress of feeling like I’m forgetting something, getting up early, not sleeping well and breathing stale airport air. The gate “hostess” is telling a passenger a convoluted story of some plane mix up last week. I’m not really following it. I don’t think he is either, but she’s a hottie potatti and I think that this white, pasty older man just likes having any sort of conversation with her.

There’s an adorable three year old that really wanted to play the dollar slots badly. They’re located ten feet from the gate and loud. So far, surprisingly I’ve only heard the “bing, bing, bing, bongbondbong, bing, bing, bing” of the spinning wheel, and no “biiiiing, biiiiing, biiiiiiing” of a jackpot. Her mom said, “No, sweetie, those games are for adults”. She didn’t miss a beat and said, “I adult, uh huh, yes, I adult, I five”. Smiling, the mom said, “No honey, you’re three, your sister is five”. She pleaded for a few more seconds and then went to work washing a row of cranberry colored vinyl seats with a baby wipe. Another mother just carried her twoish year old over to the window to see the planes. She was chewing gum and blew a big green bubble. She took her toddler’s hand and popped the bubble with it. He laughed like crazy.

When I see cuteness like this, it makes me want to have a kid.

Then I think about our eight year old neighbor Boooke who we really like, but sometimes rings the doorbell every two minutes after we’ve told her we can’t come out and “play”. I remember Anna and Svetia who came over all the time. How after twenty minutes with them I felt like every ounce of strength had been sucked from my body. I think about poopy diapers and screaming fits. Then I’m thinking about the trip to Costa Rica we’re planning for October with white water rafting, surfing and a jungle canopy tour. That wouldn’t be as easy or maybe even possible at all with a child. We’re just not ready. But I keep checking in with myself and my personal supervisor/husband. Maybe someday we’ll be ready.

I was going to describe more people in this terminal, but all you need to know is that most of them are elderly, ghostly white and look like they are falling apart.

That is all I have to report from McCarrin airport.

p.s. If I die in a fiery plane crash please say all the appropriate things to the appropriate people. I think you all know how I feel.