The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I’m flying the friendlier skies out of Paine Field in Everett this morning, avoiding the gauntlet of megalopolis through Seattle and Gomorrah and driving into a two gate airport with a TSA checkpoint line shorter than a McDonald’s at midnight. In other words a nearly enjoyable experience after our last misadventure on icy roads trying to make a flight out of SeaTac … which we missed after over an hour in their TSA cattle line. A long day, that one.

Course in a few hours I’ll land in LAX and fight rush hour traffic to push through Los Angeles gridlock to where my final destination waits open-jawed further north. But for now, like the stewardess says, push back and enjoy the ride. My seatmate is a four year old girl engrossed in her personal device, some game gizmo impersonating as a cellphone, her fuchsia glitter tennis shoes tapping occasionally to the beat of a thumb 20 times more dextrous than mine, manipulating icons in whatever game of solitaire she’s queued up until her short attention span changes the game. She has no more interest in me than the man in the moon, four years old and already marching to the Pied Piper’s walled cave with all the other kids.

Here’s another perk with a small airport: we back out onto the tarmac, rev up the engines and skip the 20 plane taxi. We’re always going to be the first in line on the jetway.

Off to the side a group of the Boeing 737 Max jets that were grounded after two crashes sit in a row with the Olympics as backdrop, waiting for a software fix to prevent their computers from misreading anti-stall demands causing the nose to ‘porpoise’ before plunging to the ground. My seatmate, innocently unaware of the lethality potential of planes certified by their same manufacturers, is busy learning the skillsets necessary to find work right here in here hometown. I’m just glad we’re both on this plane, not one of those. Strike One against self-flying planes, trucks and automobiles, but … it won’t be long. My seatmate will just take it for granted. Driver’s license? She won’t need no stinking driver’s license. Her fingers will do a lot more than just the walking….

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