Old people and airplanes

I flew home today from Colorado. This trip was supposed to be the end of the contract. It's not. I shouldn't be surprised, but this job is completely a job-never-ending. I want to be done with the job, but I don't want to leave Will, Melanie, Kyle, Ryan or Tim in the cold with half done features or systems that don't work well. It's a rock and a hard place and a bad situation.

I managed to get a great seat for the flight home: second row aisle. I'm usually all the way in the back with the unwashed masses, so the front was nice. The bad part of the front of the plane is that, if it's not first class, you board last. Which invariably means the guy in the fifth row has put his luggage in the compartment over the second row, forcing the person in the second row (read: me) to put luggage in the compartment over the fifth row, if it's available. Annoying people. Just put your luggage over your own freakin' row.

The flight was mostly uneventful. I worked squished in the most uncomfortable position because the person in front of me reclined his seat. I'm 100% sure the person who decided 1" of leg room is enough for anyone, didn't have a laptop open.

The event part of the "mostly uneventful" happened near the end of the flight. About half an hour before descent, the man sitting in the middle seat of row one opposite me went to the bathroom, lavatory, restroom, toliet, whatever (no, that's not the event part). He came back out, and the woman seated to his left went. From overheard conversations, the woman was the first man's mother. When she returned, the first guy stood up, and hovered over the elder man sitting in the aisle in the first row. "Come on, Dad, it's your turn."

The old guy looked up, shook his head, then replied, "No, I don't need to go."

The younger (but still in his fifties) guy insisted.

"You need to go. Let's go."

"I don't need to go."

"Dad, you need to go before we start landing. Get up."

At this point, I wondered who was going to win this argument. The old guy didn't want to go to the bathroom, the younger guy really wanted him to.

The son won by standing in the aisle next to his dad and forcibly lifting him half way from his seat. The old guy had little choice but to stand up.

When he did stand up, it became very clear, very quickly why he didn't want to go to the bathroom. He had problems standing, much less walking, and even less walking on an airplane, which he didn't seem to realize he was in. The four foot journey from the front row to the lavatory took a good 4-5 minutes of foot shuffling and son prodding.

When the dad made it to the lavatory, the son helped him turn around, then dropped his pants for him, and settled him on the seat. All with the door wide open and his ass sticking out. The door was open long enough for me to wonder if the cockpit crew would get nervous not being able to see out the cockpit door eyehole.

The son closed the lavatory door, and went back to his seat, but didn't sit. He sort of hovered near his row, since hovering near the front of the plane isn't allowed. He talked to his mom for a while, looked outside, talked to the flight attendant, hovered, then finally knocked on the lavatory door again.

When his father didn't answer, he opened the door. A look of complete surprise crossed his face when he realized what had happened inside the lavatory, and he roared. "What did you do? You can't do that here! Dad!"

He then rushed in, grabbed a bunch of paper towels, and started cleaning up something from the floor. The old guy was still sitting on the toliet, pants around his ankles. Being in the second row, that was as much as I could see, but the people in the front row were attempting to suppress laughter, as they had full sight of the old man, his trousers and the mess.

The son spent another 10-15 minutes both cleaning up and trying to get his father back to his seat. It was fairly heart-wrenching to watch this old guy being bullied by his son. When he finally left the lavatory, two flight attendants rushed in to finish the cleaning. I'm not exactly sure what the old guy did. I didn't smell excrement on him, but, well, my nose isn't exactly what it used to be.

Watching the old guy reminded me once again of both my own mortality and my desire to be doing what I want to be doing, and not what someone else wants me to be doing. I'm still wondering what I'll do when I'm that age, how coherent I'll be. There's a history of Alzheimer's in the family, and educated people descend into that hell more rapidly than less formally educated people, so the descent will be quick for me if I'm that unfortunate. I expect to outlive Kris. I don't want kids. Who is going to clean up my airplane lavatory shit when I'm nearly gone?