In 1982, my family moved to the United Arab Emirates.
Dad worked in the oil business, and business was booming. Dowell Slumberger recruited him to their Middle Eastern offices. So, we packed up the house, sold what we really didn't need and planned for a new life in the desert as ethnic minorities.
One problem, though. Momma HATES to fly.
To sweeten the deal, Dad found a way for us to travel to England to see my momma's parents. She's Scottish and rarely gets to see her family. So, dad got two weeks in England before starting our new life.
That still meant we had to fly. Momma was not amused.
Her fear of flying stems from an Air France Caravelle that went down in the Atlantic, killing all those on board. That was back in '73, when she came to America for the first time on vacation to see her cousin. She actually saw that Caravelle take off from Heathrow International Airport while her plane waited to taxi. By the time she got to JFK in New York, the papers carried the fatal headlines.
She realized her own mortality that day.
To get to England in those days, we would fly from Tulsa to New York, then leg over to Heathrow in London. We had about a seven-hour delay in New York this time. My parents were trapped in the TWA terminal with a cranky 6-year-old who was getting hungrier by the minute -- namely, me.
About six hours into this layover, I couldn't take it anymore. The novelty of the TWA Junior Co-Pilot's cap they'd bought for me had worn off. I was growing, and I needed fed yesterday. No. I didn't want to look out the windows or visit the stores. I wanted fed.
Dad had about $5. The rest he'd converted to pound sterling. He had to feed his family somehow, right?
We wound up in the Cloud Nine Skylounge. Or something like that. As atomic age/jet set as the name sounded, the lounge was more of a junior high cafeteria. Blue tiles, stainless lunch tray bars and ancient, hairnet-wearing ogres dishing out the gruel. All dad could afford was a cup of tea for momma (in Styrofoam instead of crockery), Pepsi for us and a paper basket of nachos and cheese.
Momma's face had turned crimson with rage as the cafeteria troll scooped a handful of stale tortilla chips into the basket, then removed the lid from the cheese. The cheese was lumpy, tan instead of orange, had bits of red something floating in it and had grown a thick epidermis layer.
It hadn't aged well at all.
With a toothless smile, the cafeteria troll had to break through this skin with a ladle, then plopped out the contents onto the chips and handed it over to dad.
If drinking out of Styrofoam wasn't enough of an insult, eating with our hands put momma on a low boil. For six hours, she'd stewed on our plane crashing into the ocean, sharks eating our remains -- you name it. Now, our last meal was tantamount to the fare you'd find in a bus station.
We chose a table and sat. My father and I immediately began shoving chips into our mouths. Momma deftly attempted to pull a chip from the basket. Like a hungry stray dog, she advanced and retreated from the chips, trying to determine if they were an immediate threat. Eventually, she found one dry enough that she could grab without getting cheese onto her pink nail polish. She took a bite, gagged and threw the offending chip back into the pile.
Then, she snapped. Like an old, dry twig.
"This is shitty, shitty, SHITTY!" she yelled.
"Aww, Bella," dad said, meekly trying to console her.
What else could he have done with $5 in an airport?
People looked, but she didn't care. She was furious at eating with her hands, drinking out of Styrofoam and surely spending her last moments on earth engulfed in a massive ball of fire.
Shitty.
That was a new word for me. A new, powerful word imbued with fire and passion. Immediately, my 6-year-old brain began putting the context clues together as to what it meant. As my parents argued, I worked it into a song and sang it under my breath all over JFK International Airport. They didn't notice their angelic-looking son making other travellers wince as he sang foul language loud and clear.
Time came to board. Our passes were called and we walked to the jetway. Momma was beside herself. Dad was bent out of shape because he tried to do something good, and it blew up in his face. I was in love with a new word, and I couldn't wait to find an application. Little did I know that time was nigh.
While one stewardess looked at our boarding passes, another attractive female bent down to pin TWA Junior Co-Pilot wings onto my sweater. It complimented my TWA cap perfectly. I remember her round bosoms and her red-lipped smile framing her perfectly white teeth. Always a charmer, I smiled back at the beautiful, dark-haired stranger giving me my own set of wings and so much attention.
"And how are we doing today, Mr. Junior Co-Pilot?"
Here it was. My chance.
"Shitty," I beamed back to her in an impressive show of adult knowledge.
A hand flew over my mouth. The pretty stranger stood up in shock, and I remember audible gasps coming from several directions. I was escorted onto the jetway in a militaristic fashion by my momma. I was a war criminal.
I still can feel her hot breath on my neck as she whispered in my ear.
"Now John," she rasped in her Scots brogue. "That's not a very nice word. Mummy shouldn't have said it, and you shouldn't either. And please, please don't say it in front of your grandmother!"
