Mind your own business

I returned today from spending the weekend in D.C. My flight back first had a stop in St. Louis, then Orange County, then finally San Jose. The stop in Orange County was only for a half hour, as the same plane was then continuing on to San Jose. Wanting to stretch my legs a bit, I decided to leave the plane and walk around the terminal for a few minutes. I had been seated in the absolute last row, near the window, right next to the loud, pulsating, vibrating engine. (Note to self: don’t fly American Airlines anymore if the flight uses a Super-80.)

Some passengers who were continuing to San Jose were staying on the plane. I passed two people sitting together, an older white guy and a younger Asian woman. From behind, I could see that the woman, who was sitting on the inside, next to the window, was turned about 30 degrees away from the man. She was also hunched over a bit, like she was hiding something. My curiousity was piqued: what’s the deal with these two? What’s she hiding?

As I passed them, I couldn’t resist turning around and investigating the scene. And well, she was hiding something all right.

She was breastfeeding her infant.

Now, it’s not the concept of this that bothers me, but rather the awkwardness of the position in which my curiosity had now put me. Since I was in the last row, I was the last one off the plane; this, combined with my very noticeable turnaround to check them out, drew the attention of both of them, so now mom AND dad and I are staring at each other, locked in a split-second but nonetheless extremely uncomfortable game of visual chicken. And the obvious question in their minds has to be, what is this guy, some kind of sicko?

Luckily, I only saw the actual suckling in my peripheral vision, as I made a conscious effort to not look away from her eyes as soon as I understood what was going on. But I would guess that even the back of my head was beet red as I resumed walking off the plane and made my escape. Once I was in the terminal, though, it occurred to me that I was going to have to walk back past these people when I re-boarded the plane. Oh, that’s just great. When I returned, I purposely stared at the floor until well past their row.

Lesson learned: if you see a woman sorta hunched over and appearing to be hiding something, then, um, just mind yer own damn business.