Airport Becky
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Airport Becky
This is a fairly common exchange whenever I go on a walk with my wife. To be clear, it’s an exchange between her and whomever—or whatever—she sees.
“Good morning, little flower,” my wife says.
“Well, good morning to you, lovely lady,” the flower seems to say.
“Look at you and your beautiful bloom,” my wife continues. “Aren’t you just the best version of yourself?”
"Thank you for noticing,” the flower seems to say. “So few people do.”
“Oh, my goodness, don’t thank me. I should be thanking you—for your gorgeous color and your sweet scent, and the way you make our walk absolutely wonderful.”
“Wow… Geez… I mean… well… shucks,” the flower seems to say.
“We love you so,” my wife says. “I hope you have the greatest day of your life.”
And then we continue walking. My wife often follows up with me, a sort of emotional rendezvous to put a period on our brush with beauty. “Wasn’t that flower just amazing?” she’ll say.
“It was,” I’ll confirm.
I think back to when I first met my wife, and this rendezvous conversation went a little differently, at least in my own head. “Wasn’t that flower just amazing?” she’d say.
And I’d think, “Duh, that’s what flowers be doing. That’s their mother fucking job. Do your job, flower. Be pretty and shit and don’t bitch about it.”
Over the years, I’ve realized that my wife’s way is better. A sweet, child-like gratitude imbues the world with effervescence. It’s an elixir that renders the mundane magnificent. As a result of being married to her for two decades now, I find myself dialoguing with flowers or—more recently—with the deer I cross paths with when I’m hiking in the park.
People sometimes ask me if my wife is always so joyful, so quick with a kind word, so energetically buoyant and flowing with gratitude. And the answer, generally speaking, is yes. It is her nature. But it’s also her practice, something that she works at.
And the cynics might chalk it up to her privilege, but I know plenty of miserable assholes who have far more privilege than my wife. She makes the choice—and it is indeed a choice—to live in gratitude, and this pretty much keeps her in a consistent state of flow. She sets a tone for our family that makes it feel like the universe is winking at us, letting us know that we’re going to be okay, that everything is going to work out.
Unless we’re headed to the airport. At the airport, my wife sheds her grateful nature in favor of one that is at home with the likes of Attila the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, and that drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket.
I recently made the comment that my wife has an airport alter ego, like Clark Kent and Superman. She becomes someone else when duty calls. My son was quick to revise this sentiment. “More like Walter White and Heisenberg,” he said. And this is a more accurate assessment.
Once our family arrives at an airport, pulls our luggage out of the trunk, and approaches the check-in counter, my wife’s entire demeanor changes. Her posture goes rigid, the veins in her neck throb, and she gazes at us with glossy eyes.
”Are you motherfuckers ready?! You better have your shit together! It’s go time, fuck heads! Don’t worry about your boarding pass, assholes! I’m your boarding pass! You just make sure you fall in line—nuts to butts, you hear me?! Nuts to butts!”
“Uh, mom,” our daughter interjects. “I don’t have nuts.”
“Oh, are you sassing me, sweet cheeks?! Keep it up, smart ass, and I’ll knock that taste out yer mouth!”
“Dad,” my son says, “Mom’s scaring me.”
“We’re all scared, son. Just try not to make eye contact, and do what she says. It’ll all be over soon.”
“Pick up the pace, shitbirds! I know one-legged librarians who move with more urgency.”
“Mom, my knees hurt. I can’t keep sprinting.”
“Yeah, well, your ass is gonna hurt if we miss this flight ‘cause you’ll be turnin’ tricks at rest stops to finance your way home. Keep moving!”
“Honey, our flight doesn’t board for an hour.”
“I said MOVE!”
Once we board the plane, my wife’s blood pressure equalizes and she calms down. Until we land. When we land, well, let’s just all be grateful that the FAA doesn’t allow switchblades. Because almost always, some schmuck can’t wait his turn and insists on stepping in front of my wife despite the fact that he was several rows in front of her.
“Oh,” she’ll say at top volume to this complete stranger, “I didn’t realize we had royalty among us in coach. Go ahead, your majesty. I know your time is so much more important than the rest of us civilians.”
And then she’ll lick one of her canine teeth and glare with an intensity that suggests she does not believe in moral absolutes when it comes to the cold-blooded murder of entitled airline passengers. To this day, I’ve never seen a man meet her gaze and not reassume his appropriate place in the queue.
My wife will tell you—and I agree—that Airport Becky is a response to liminal spaces. Liminal spaces, if you’re unfamiliar with the term, are those places between here and there. They’re transitional areas. Hallways. Waiting rooms. Parking structures (Parking Lot Becky is a similar, though less intense, version of Airport Becky). Liminal spaces exist in time and space, but they also exist on a psychological plane. Being neither here nor there triggers a flight-or-fight-for-your-fucking-life response in my wife.
Me, I’m comfortable in a liminal space, the same way I watch horror movies or Shameless and feel as though I’ve been wrapped up in a warm blanket. I grew up in a town where chaos was the normal order, so liminality feels right. My wife, not so much. Which made it all the more hilarious when one of our recent trips came off the rails, or the runway, as it were.
We went to New York City for Thanksgiving, partly because we toured Sarah Lawrence College where my daughter just got a scholarship to play volleyball but mostly because our family are New Yorkers at heart. We love the city, everything about it. After a week of great food, great art, The Book of Mormon, and the best people watching on the planet, we headed home.
We arrived at the check-in counter, and the sweet lady with tangerine-colored acrylic nails and kind eyes quickly told us that our 6:15 am flight wasn’t actually scheduled for today. It was scheduled for the next day. Airport Becky got the day wrong.
My daughter started laughing. Like, belly laughing. She didn’t have nuts when my wife insisted on “nuts to butts,” but she had balls in this moment, enough balls to laugh them right off.
I also started laughing, so did my son, and so did the guy with dreads who was loading the luggage. I’m guessing most people don’t fall down laughing when they learn they’ve fucked up their flight time to the tune of twenty-four hours.
My wife, like a lot of moms—probably most moms—shoulders the burden of planning. Vacations, holidays, finances—my wife is the deity in charge of such affairs. And she’s extraordinary at it. Lists? She has those in spades. Calendars? Color-coded and down to the minute. Spreadsheets? She’ll make a spreadsheet her bitch.
Which is why this recent snafu was so hilarious to us.
And our laughter at her expense was met with… laughter. My wife shed Airport Becky’s emotional Kevlar and giggled at her own blunder. I don’t think the woman with the tangerine nails was used to such elegance in the face of high-stakes travel, and she spent the next fifteen minutes finding us seats on another flight. On Thanksgiving weekend—traditionally, the busiest of the year—an airline employee went out of her way to get us home. And I have to believe it was because she saw my wife laugh at herself. She saw a somewhat fatally flawed woman. She saw a woman who talks to flowers and decided not to leave her stranded in a liminal space.
Recently Chris shared on social media how hard the caretaking has been on him. It’s taken him to dark places. Thankfully, he had the strength and humility to ask for help. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this lovely family. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.
i love you, i see you, and thank you for laughing at my alter-ego with me
Wow. Talk about Jekyll & Hyde... From "Hello Mr. Flower" to "hell-on-wings," as it were. To your wife's credit, she was able to laugh at herself over that 24-hour snafu.
Two months ago, I had what I'm calling a "Sky Harbor Meltdown," in Phoenix. Your tale of woe (and giggles) inspires me to write about that ... shame and all. Thank you, kind sir.
And congrats on the VB scholarship. Your daughter must be pretty good!