The ostrich

Contrary to popular belief, life here at Fox Tales is not all roses. Sometimes, life gets awkward.

Sometimes, campsites get double booked and both families show up at the same time. Sometimes you run into your ex at the temple. Sometimes you are forced to hang out with people you have absolutely nothing to talk to about for hours on end. It's not pretty.

For most couples, one partner has the job of dealing with all of life's necessary unpleasantries.  Price haggling, conflict smoothing, gawky and graceless situation escaping- these things have to be done. Some people thrive on it, they love the challenge or better yet never even knew it was awkward in the first place. Others of us are forced to deal with it because, well, we married an ostrich. The other partner, the one who just can't handle the discomfort of sending away an unwanted door salesman, demanding a better price, or enduring disgruntled conversations, is the ostrich. The ostrich squirms when he is one inch out of his comfort zone, he is embarrassed by any and all public disagreements, he covers his ears and closes his eyes and puts his head in the sand at first sight of anything less than enjoyable. Evan is the ostrich in our relationship. He literally can not handle awkward situations. He can't watch them on TV, he can't hardly bear to hear stories about them, and he most certainly runs away from them in real life.

We got on the plane yesterday to fly home from our oh-so-wonderful Christmas vacation (post to follow) on a five hour trip back to SLC. They let you board early if you have small children, heaven knows why because this is a terrible idea. The last thing your children need is extra time in a one square foot radius. We waited until as late as we could to get on to earn Winston some more leg stretching time which meant by the time we sat down it was very crowded. I was at a window seat and Evan had the middle with a snowboarding bound college student in the isle seat. We get all settled in and naturally this seemed like a good time for Winston to squat down and poop right? Right. So he did. That's fine, I'm a mom, whatever. I can change a poopy diaper of a 25 lb squirmy 13 month old on my lap, no problem. So I did. Impressed with my speed and skill, I wrapped up the diaper, set it behind me on my seat and turned around to finish getting Winston situated. Then I heard a horrible terrible awful noise. The diaper slid off my chair. I heard it land inside a bag. Not my bag. The woman's bag behind me. The kind of crackly noisy paper bag that you only carry around for one reason, it has fast food in it. Noooooo! I looked at Evan, did that really just happen? The ostrich has his head buried in his sweatshirt. Did he see? Was he sleeping already? No he was just laughing hysterically in his comfortable ostrich hideaway and not helping at all. What was I supposed to do??? Did she know? Had she seen? Excuse me ma'am, I think my son's poop just landed in your food. I'll take it back now if that's okay? AH! After I finally gained control of my giggling I stood up and did just that, reported we had lost a diaper. She says, "uh yeah we found it." and hands it back to me. "Thanks" was all I could manage before I turned back around in time for the laughter to consume me again.

So awkward.

To the lady sitting in seat 21E I am so unbelievably sorry. Someday, you will have children and you will understand. And hopefully you don't marry an ostrich so he can help smooth the wrinkles out better than I did. But until that day, thank you for providing some serious laughter for my husband and I.

Also, we owe you a burger.