Now that the airlines have become so relentlessly rude and unresponsive to passengers, I almost wish my older son Rory were 11 again. He’d know how to get their attention.
I can say with no hesitation whatsoever
that Rory was – and is - the most creative (some would say diabolically
creative) and unique individual I’ve ever known. Since he’s adopted, I can’t
claim credit (or in some cases, blame) for any of it.
I aver, however, that Rory (now an
adult) had psychological warfare skills from which the armed forces could
benefit. Send Rory to his room for a time-out and he’d open up both his
windows, pound on his bed with a tennis racket, and wail loud enough to be
heard all the way down the block, “Please stop beating me, Mommy!” Or worse: “No,
no, don’t touch me there!”
He could never be bought at any price. In
fact, his fourth grade teacher observed on his report card, “Rory would make
the perfect CIA agent as they could pull out his finger nails one by one and he
would still never divulge his spelling words.”
I just never knew what Rory was going to
do next but I was pretty clear it was going to be something. Scaring the
bejeezus out of me was probably his all-time favorite sport, embarrassing me or
his father in public a close second. His younger sibling, Henry, could be a
target as well. As Olof, my second husband, often said after he came on the
scene, “Rory looks for excitement. And finds it.” Oh, did he.
The Rory stories are so plentiful and
varied—part of his genius was that he never repeated anything twice—that they’re
just referred to in family shorthand: “the Jolly Jumper baby brother slingshot
disaster,” “the spray painting Henry silver crisis,” “the Mom’s office fiasco,” “the Jack in the Box ketchup explosion,” “the
dropping the big rock down the chimney onto the metal grate two feet from where
Mom was reading prank”, “the mummifying Henry episode,” “The Cleveland airport debacle
(hopefully the warrant has expired),” “the Chinese restaurant catastrophe,” “the
15-inch rubber penis in the guest bath during Mom’s dinner party event,” and
yes, even “the Bomb Squad incident.” In Rory’s defense, the HazMat guys should
have realized right away it wasn’t a real bomb before they cordoned off the area.
His handmade Mother’s Day card the year
he was 10 read: “You’ve been like a mother to me.”
But sometimes that incredible creativity
saved us. We were on our way to the Jersey Shore for a three-week vacation but
our flights had left San Diego late so we missed our connection. By the time we
got to the Philadelphia airport, it was late—and our bags were nowhere to be
found. We didn’t dare leave without them, as we doubted that even the most
dedicated airline baggage service was ever going to find us in our remote
barrier island location two hours away. The airline baggage lady had nothing
but ennui for our situation.
As I was getting increasingly irritated
with her profound lack of interest, Henry, 9, sat quietly playing on his Game
Boy while Olof read one of his massive technical tomes. Eleven-year-old Rory,
who seemed oblivious to my conversation, was careening around the waiting area
in a wheelchair he’d found there. Just as it seemed like we were going to spend
the night in Philadelphia, he wheeled up to me and, twitching alarmingly,
whimpered plaintively, “Mommmmmy, I left my medicine in my suitcase.”
The color drained out of the baggage
lady’s face. All of a sudden she can’t type fast enough. Noting his success,
Rory cranked it up a few notches, drooling out of the corner of his mouth,
making scary guttural sounds, and flailing his arms so hard he fell out of the
wheelchair. I thought the baggage lady would faint.
The flight on which our bags were coming
in was quickly located and we were showered with food and lounge coupons to
make our wait more comfortable. (Rory made a miraculous recovery the second we
wheeled him out of the baggage area.) Two hours later, the bags arrived and we
were on our way. I was beyond grateful, so much so that I almost forgave him
for the Chinese restaurant thing. (I’m still afraid to go back to that place.)
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