My airline has a policy that doesn’t allow anyone under the age of sixteen to fly without an adult. But, for an additional fee, they can fly as an “unaccompanied minor,” giving our employees  the responsibility of ensuring they get delivered into the hands of the documented adult waiting for them at their final destination. 

As a flight attendant, we are required to give them personal briefings about the safety features of the aircraft, check on them every 15 minutes, and most importantly make sure they do not get off without one of us walking them off. We try and board them first and seat them in the last row.

On a recent flight, the flight leader called back and told me an accompanied minor was on her way back and asked me to brief her.

After she took her seat, I launched into possibly the most thorough individual briefing I’ve every given.

“Hi there! Is this your first time flying? No? Well, you probably know the drill, but I’ve got to repeat it anyway.” I jokingly start out, “I see you figured out how to put your seat belt on. Good job! The closest exit is right behind you. If for any reason a mask drops down, make sure you put it over your nose AND mouth and, if during the flight you put a mask on, be sure to remove it first. This particular aircraft has different colored exit signs…”  and on and on and on I went.

She attentively listened with a smile on her face and politely thanked me for each little tidbit I passed along to her.

I ended my briefing, as I always do, “BUT, the MOST important thing is that you do NOT get off this airplane without one of us accompanying you, okay?”

She looked appalled, “But WHY? I’m twenty-six years old!”

Right behind me, waiting to take her seat, was the actual unaccompanied minor.

Can you imagine what this sweet twenty-six year old girl (who really could pass for fifteen) was thinking?? Getting this laser focussed, personal briefing about every detail about the airplane and what she needs to do in an emergency?

No doubt she was thinking to herself…this old bat is taking her job waaaay too seriously…she should retire already.

What cracked me up the most was how grateful she seemed, never once giving off vibes about how weird she must have thought I was, how weird the whole thing was. It wasn’t until I told her she had to wait until everybody else got off, that she even questioned it. Too funny!

For obvious reasons, New Year’s Eve is the least likely night of the year that Bob and I are able to get a sitter. But I love watching football and Michigan was playing Georgia in the Orange Bowl. So Bob and I donned our Michigan shirts in anticipation of celebrating a  big win. Of course, it soon became painfully obvious that only Georgia fans would be celebrating. 

As anyone who knows me knows, I LOVE playing games. Bob would want to insert here that what I really like playing are mind games (ha-ha). I’m very competitive and it doesn’t take much for me to become obnoxious about it.

Anyhow, I insisted we needed to play a game. When we were dating we played all kinds of games. And we laughed and laughed. Shouldn’t we try to start 2022 out laughing and laughing? After all, there hadn’t been much to laugh about in 2020 and 2021. The only problem was I couldn’t think of a single two player game. What games did we used to play--other than video games? We wracked our brains but couldn’t remember any of them. All word games were out of the question—Bob hates word games and is so awful at them that I can’t even derive my usual glee of whomping on him. I brought out every game we had in search of something, anything. Turned out our only option was Old Maid. Bob had never heard of it. That in itself made me laugh. Who hasn’t heard of Old Maid?

I explained the rules to him. He said he must be missing something because it sounded too easy. Because it’s made for 4 year old’s, ya big silly. I dealt the cards and we made bets. The stakes were high—the loser would have to do anything the winner wanted. When it came down to those last two cards, we studied each other’s faces as our hands hovered over one card and then the other. Did trying to hold back a smile mean we were about to pick the Old Maid? Or was it just good acting? Turns out we aren’t too good at reading each others’ faces. It made the game very suspenseful and we did laugh and laugh. 

A few weeks later we drove down to Indy and brought back four-year old Brooks and two-year old Maisie for the weekend. It quickly became evident that Brooks is following in my footsteps, which meant sadly (but for his own good) he must lose at least one game out of the dozen we played. But the little smarty-pants was determined not to suffer a loss. The one time I made sure he chose the Old Maid, he simply changed the rules. When he realized she was the last card he was holding, he quickly announced, “Actually…now the person who gets the 'old lady' is the winner.” His craftiness cracked me up.

Who would have thought that bringing in the New Year playing Old Maid with your husband of 37+ years of marriage would be fun?? Though I never want to ring in the New Year playing Old Maid again (it was actually very pitiful), the fact that we did have a rollicking good time probably means we’re going to be okay.