You Should Write a Blog!

One of my almost eight year-old's Christmas gifts was a trip to California to visit her grandparents. Last week, I put her on a plane to Los Angeles. She was super scared about her first unaccompanied flight and almost changed her mind at the last minute.

"Why did they make you come back here anyway?" she hissed at the gate. "I'm not a baby! I can do this by myself!" She practically ran on the plane.

So much for a tearful good-bye.

A few days ago, I made the trip myself to pick her up. The first leg of the flight was from Orlando to Saint Louis. To pass the time, I started jotting down notes that eventually will become a blog entry. While I was writing, the person sitting next to me on the plane drank three beers and two cocktails. Suddenly, without warning, the man laughed.

"What you just wrote was really funny," he slurred.

"Huh?"

"I'm really nosy," the man explained. In the conversation that followed, I learned that the man was a seventh year senior at Fresno State and upon graduation, will work as a sociologist. When I asked him what a sociologist does, he replied, "Too many things to name." I also learned that he had been looking over my shoulder the whole time and had read everything that I wrote.

I felt violated and in need of shower and and shotgun.

"It looks like you're writing a story," the man observed.

"Mmm hmmm," I replied.

"Are you writing that for your friends and family?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered.

The man scratched his head and thought for a minute. "You should start a blog," he said finally.

"That's a good idea," I agreed.

The man tried to order another beverage, but the flight attendant refused to sell him one.

I later told the flight attendant that I wanted to marry him. The flight attendant thanked me for my interest, but told me that he was already spoken for. He was dating a pilot who worked for a competing airline.

"On second thought, maybe a blog isn't a good idea," the drunk college student said. "Who would want to read stories about other people's kids?"

I agreed that the concept was rather strange.

"Good luck this semester," I told the man as I put in my headphones. He flashed me the 'thumbs up' sign and made me promise to start a blog sometime soon. I told him that I would think about it.