jetway tale 1

so i flew to ohio for a funeral and i thought ohio might be the only state in the union that shared no letters with the word funeral and i spent hours thinking about it one night when i couldn’t sleep, but i told this to my cousin cole and he thought for 20 seconds and said mississippi and he’s right, so that theory was disproved but whatever, right?

 but i got in a plane and it was from oregon to illinois and there was a family of three in front of me and the kid was this skater kid, like ten years old and i knew he was a skater because he had his skateboard with him as we waited in the jetway. and i was looking at him and thinking he was pretty cool because he was full on in the skater mold like tight jeans and backwards cap that said “independent” or whatever (i made that up because i don’t know any other skater brands and that image adds an air of validity to this story). and his board was all scuffed up and the wheels were all worn down so he was clearly a little skater, whether or not his backwards cap said independent.

 so i’m admiring the little dude and he spins his board around, pivoting it on his toe and the pristine red bumper sticker facing me reads “abortion stops a beating heart”. 

and i think that’s not punk! in fact that’s not punk at all!

and the rest of the story only tangentially relates to the first part, but the kid loses control of his board, mid-spin (and by now my admiration for the little fellow is much diminished) and it goes crashing down onto his mom’s toe and she yelps and everybody looks at them and the father of the family is startled by the crash-yelp and he turns to look and in so doing, he knocks over his guitar so now the guitar crashes over onto the rare open patch of ground in the jetway and sends a resonating “bong-ng-ng” through our small steel world and to break the tension mom says “like father like son” and everyone laughs.

and the kid says “he’s not my father.”