My mother and I have not been a part of each others’ lives for 13 years, and I think we both agree that this is for the best. However, for a few years, when I was in my twenties and early thirties, we were actually quite good friends and shared some good times together. This is what I like to remember, and that is why I am sharing this story today. It still makes me laugh.

∞ ∞ ∞

In June 2000, my mother and I flew out to California to check up on my grandparents. I was also to buy my grandfather’s car, as he could not drive anymore, and we would drive it back to Boston–taking Route 66 through the Southwest, detouring to see the Grand Canyon. In other words, an adventure. It was exciting to go west again after so many years in the northeast, and we were both feeling free–she from the health issues of her husband and me from my daily routine.

We had a layover at O’Hare, but the plane we were to board there was grounded so long they gave all the passengers vouchers for lunch and told us to come back later. We walked all over before settling somewhere with salads and V-8 juice, which we spiked with vodka from my mother’s purse. (She doesn’t regularly have a stash of vodka in her purse, mind, but she’d filled a few airline bottles to save money and why not?) Well, they were potent V-8 Bloody Marys on top of green salad, and we were a little tipsy and actually late arriving to board our plane. The last ones on, in fact: grinning and happy to finally be moving on our adventure again.

We find our seats and sit for a long time while two or three flight attendants struggle to close one of the overhead compartments a few rows ahead of us. This is one of those big-bellied jumbo jets with the middle seating, and in my tipsy state, given the whole grounding-for-mechanical-repairs thing, the shoddiness of this giant contraption that we are willingly bound to fly in strikes me funny and I can’t stop smiling so I look down, pretending to be busy with things. Mom and I fool around with the earphones they gave us free for being patient customers: Hawaiian music is on one of the channels, and again it feels really good to be going West.

A female flight attendant starts talking to us over the loudspeaker, but it isn’t the usual fluff about welcome aboard and know your exits–instead we are made privy to her extreme annoyance with the airline and their planes. She calls our attention to the buttons on our armrests. “See that one with the human figure on it? If you press that button, one of us will come over to you and step. on. your. fingers.” Mom and I look at each other to make sure we’d just heard the same thing, and burst out laughing. Tears are rolling down our faces before we’re done. Oh, we might die in a plane crash, but we’ll at least have had a damned good laugh first.