Monthly Archives: June 2012

An Open Letter to The Window Seat

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star and Fairfield Sun newspapers on June 21, 2012, in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.) Farewell, my lightly scratched and slightly fogged friend. Parting is such sweet sorrow. We’ll always have Paris. And Heathrow. And Chicago O’Hare. It’s not you—it’s me. Like cigarettes and unlimited data plans, I can no longer afford you. Still, we had our moments, didn’t we? Remember when I could stuff my laptop under you? (That was when I could afford the extra bag.) Remember when I’d fall asleep on your plexi-glass shoulder? (That was before they charged fees for extra legroom.) Remember when there was only one set of footprints? That was when I carried you—actually, your entire airline—out of bankruptcy in 2001. Three weeks after the attacks of 9/11, Congress passed the Air Transportation Safety and Stabilization Act. It provided grants, loan guarantees and tax waivers valued at $15 billion to save the airlines’ bacon. Your parent airline never liked me, though, and now they’ve figured out yet another way to keep us apart: extra fees for window seats. Parents can be cruel like that. In retrospect, ours was a relationship doomed from the start. It started as a fling, a one-flight stand on the red-eye from Orlando. I was just coming off a long-term relationship with the aisle seat, where my legs dangled carelessly in the delicious open spaces only flight attendants dared to tread. After an ugly breakup caused by overbooking, we were thrown together amid the chaos of coach. Accustomed to being shoehorned like crayons in a box on every flight, the comfort of your concave embrace was a revelation. How could I resist you? From the protection of the window seat, there were no more glares as passengers tripped over my feet in the aisle. I no longer worried about falling asleep on a stranger’s arm on long flights; instead, I rested my pillow against your vibrating hull. There were no more bruised knees from the beverage cart; no bonks on the head each time someone opened the overhead bin; no getting up every time passengers with teacup bladders needed to use the bathroom. Alas, your parents (like the Capulets and Montagues before them) conspired to keep us apart. They started by charging for my second bag, then charging for the first. Soon they were weighing my bags and measuring my carry-ons. Upset we were still seeing each other, they took away my in-flight meal and hid the blankets and pillows. I had to pay extra for using my frequent flier points, then had to pay fees for using my phone to book those frequent flier points. I had pay for the lousy movies after purchasing the lousy headphones. On top of all this, I had to pay extra for the fuel. The fuel! That’s like renting a tuxedo and being charged a fee for using the fabric. Let’s face it: your parents were always looking for a better match and a larger dowry. It’s become common practice…

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Mommy’s Meth Lab

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star and Fairfield Sun newspapers on June 7, 2012, in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.) My mom ran a meth lab out of her house for years without getting caught; she stockpiled enough simulants and inhalants to make Charlie Sheen weep. My kindergarten teacher (who shall remain nameless to protect her family) was even worse; she let her students handle so many drugs that it’s a miracle any of us managed to crawl out of there alive. However, after reading the news this week, I realize that my beloved Gammy was the worst of all: she used bath salts. When I was growing up, glue sniffing was a phase that lasted about a day or two in elementary school art class. Trying to get high off a bottle of Elmer’s was like trying to suck a bowling ball through a straw: it could be done if you tried hard enough, but there wasn’t much of a payoff. Sure, you might hear a story about a model airplane enthusiast going off the rails every now and again, but who could blame them? When you gave kids glue, paint, contact cement, and small amounts of gas in a windowless room and expected them to spend hours fumbling over tiny details, it doesn’t take a Grateful Dead fan to figure out the first trip that plane is taking. It was a time when parents had fewer “hidden dangers” in the house from which to protect their children—mostly things like paint chips, asbestos, or the accidental ingestion of cleaning products tucked away on the high shelves. Nowadays, more and more people are drawn to that very shelf in search of a cheap, readily-available high. Stealing a bit of dad’s liquor or stumbling upon an older brother’s “secret stash” has been replaced by something far more sinister: studying ingredient labels. Stealing mommy’s Ambien is so 2011. These days, kids are finding novel ways to use household products in ways we never imagined. As a kid, I never looked at the felt-tip markers as a door to another world… I just used them draw doors. I never thought of spending my newspaper route money on paint solvent or correction fluid or contact cleaner. Unfortunately, these have now become common inhalants, both cheap and accessible. By modern standards, my parents’ home warehoused a laundry list of mind-altering substances. The kitchen cabinets contained aerosol air fresheners, degreasers, whipped cream dispensers, peppermint extract, and nutmeg. The bathroom cabinets were full of hair spray, cough medicine, nail polish, ammonia, and toilet bowl cleaner. In today’s climate, my dad’s workshop stocks of spray paint, gasoline, and car wax would make him a suburban Pablo Escobar. Regardless of where they fall internationally on science achievement tests, it seems our kids are developing a fatal interest in chemistry. Data from the 2011 “Monitoring the Future” study, an annual survey from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, shows that 13 percent of 8th graders reported abusing inhalants in the past year. Most…

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