In Russia, You Don't Ride Plane. Plane Ride You.

I left you last at my journey from my home that wasn't feeling homey to France, but first: A stop in Russia. I'm not sure why I needed to stop in Russia. If you look at a map, it's pretty out of the way, but it was the cheapest ticket, and I wasn't going to argue with that. Unfortunately, you do get what you pay for. As I walked down the little bridge connecting the airport to the plane, I heard a sound that I hadn't heard since I worked at Bright Horizons Family Solutions: The sound of a Slavic kid going apeshit.

"Slavic kids going apeshit."

The last time i had the distinct pleasure of watching a kid of from Eastern Europe completely lose it was back when I was working at the daycare. I normally worked with the older kids there, and while they can freak out, the normally cling on to some level of rationality. But this fateful day, I was working in the preschool room, and there was a relatively new kid. I don't remember his name, so we'll call him Boris. Boris had come somewhere from Eastern Europe because his parents had gotten some job in New York. He was still technically in the process of learning English, but he seemed to communicate pretty well with the other kids. I remember watching him for a while, more as a social experiment than anything. I was interested in seeing what happened with this kid who supposedly didn't speak a lot of English had to engage with a bunch of people who didn't speak a lick of his language. Anyway, when no interesting situations presented themselves in the first fifteen minutes, I got bored and played Legos with some of the kids.

Cut to about six minutes later when this kid is suddenly hulking the fuck out on the other side of the room. He's like knocking over chairs and stuff, screaming "I DON'T WANT TO SPEAK ENGLISH ANYMORE!" (in English) and occasionally biting himself. And sometimes the furniture. When that started up, I had to get on the phone and call for backup. I mean, I wasn't trained for that situation. Eventually, his parents came and picked him up, and that was the last I saw of him.

"(in English:) YOU CAN'T MAKE ME SPEAK ENGLISH!"

Now, before my very eyes, this kid was freaking out. He wasn't biting anything but he was fighting tooth and nail to not get on that airplane. He was probably about eight years old and pretty big. But his dad was wrestling him, carrying him upside down, over his shoulder, just about any which way he could move a few steps with him. Really, after the initial shock, I felt bad for him and his parents. I asked the flight attendant, "Is he scared or something?" (assuming she could speak whatever that kid spoke), and she said, "Yes, and so are we." I chucked and sat down.

But guess who decides to plump his chunky ass down next to me? I'll give you a hint: It's the same person screaming bloody murder. Yep, it was that kid. And it was hours before he stopped. But he did stop. And I kept reminding myself that for the four or five hours till we finally touched the ground, and I was finally in Europe. Back after five years.