I know what you’re thinking, this is a hilarious conversation that so many of us have had with our kids during potty training.  We tend to ask them right before a car ride, or maybe if they are sitting there silent for a very long time, or even just when they are grabbing their crotch.  We tend to always get that same answer of “No” so quickly, almost as if they have one in the chamber for their machine gun of questions and answers.  I wouldn’t compare it to asking “Why?” a hundred times, but this one just seems too practiced and prepared. Our children either don’t understand the question or they are just ignoring us when we attempt to avoid a very messy and usually smelly accident.

Well folks, I’m here to explain that this same phenomenon seems to happen on so many of my flights today.  Something about putting people into a small, smelly and sometimes sweaty tube full of seats somehow transports people back into a body and mind of a 2-year-old, causing probably fewer accidents that they once knew, but no less of an uncertainty of needing to use that bathroom.   Take today as an example.  On a what was meant to be a very on time, quick hop over to Atlanta for a connecting flight to somewhere out East, a woman in what I could tell was her mid 40’s, literally waited until the plan was getting ready to back up to ask if she could use the toilet.  Now usually I can see how this would happen.  I mean they don’t always tell you how much time you have, and depending on the ability for people to actually find their seat, load their oversized bag into an undersized overhead, you could be sitting in your seat as an early boarder for quite a while. But in this case, the flight attendant, completely out of the ordinary on most flights even said to the entire cabin while we were waiting to push back….”If anyone needs to use the restroom one last time, we have a few minutes as they finish loading the bags.” 5 minutes went by, then 10, then 15.   No one was going to take this nice lady up on her offer.  But just as they started the safety announcements…..DING…..”I’d like to use the restroom now.”  She got up, they held the announcements and just as she shut the door on the front bathroom….DING … “do you think I have time?” from yet another passenger.

I mean come on people.  As my wife is reading this she’s probably saying to herself “You have absolutely no room to talk Mr. “I have the bladder of a 2-year-old.”  But to my defense, I have the courtesy not to delay an entire plane full of people because I was too busy watching a you tube video with my Beats headphones of the latest Taylor Swift song applied to a 1980’s workout video (see below for original video without Shake It Off….it’s better that way).  I personally will run to a bathroom on the way to a gate risking the dreaded middle seat scenario, or worse I will be the first guy to jump out of my seat once that seatbelt sign goes off (or even a little before), risking both pants and embarrassment just to avoid delaying a flight.  I have respect for the system as awkward as it is….mainly because I make my kids go through the same scrutiny.

That all being said, whether you’re questioning your child or your loved one boarding the plane, I feel like we all need to agree on a system.  If someone asked you if you need to go to the bathroom….you go. Don’t feel like you just had your mom ask if you remembered to wash behind your ears, or whether you packed enough underwear, or even if she is telling you “it’s ok to have your alone time in your bedroom”……just go as quickly as is comfortable, and keep us all out of that narrow hallway in the air that we all have to fly in each and every day as much as you can.

– the traveling “If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be neat and wipe the seat #cleantoilets” daddy