“The pilot has a burning butt!”

I want this but not in a weird way, you sicko.

I’ve talked about how as a first officer we just don’t get the respect the captain gets. I’m good with it most of the time. He gets all the glory but he is also ultimately responsible for the airplane. I am the first officer, but second in command and the captain is almost always there, so “second in command” really just means “not in command.” It only affects my ego after a long day of flying when I have an interchange with someone like this:

“Are you the captain?” The well-intending, sweet,  80-year-old grandma asked.

“No, I am the first officer, the other pilot.” The handsome, good-natured, first officer replied.

“Hmm. Do they let you fly the airplane too or do you just sit there like a worthless putz (she didn’t say it,  but she implied it)?”  The bitter old hag, with the grandma mustache asked with a condescending tone.

“Yeah I can fly too and look I can go potty all by myself!” The pilot-man, with his saint-like patience finally exhausted, replied as he pulled down his pants to reveal no “diapers” or “pull-ups.”

You get the idea. It does wear on me a little. So you can understand why on the rare occasion that the Captain leaves and says, “All right I’m running to get some coffee, you’re in charge.” My heart skips a beat and I am become a little drunk with power, barking commands at the flight attendants, “Bring me a coke with the coldest ice possible! If the ice is no to my liking, cabin wench, I shall spit the entire thing in your face!” I yell at the baggage handlers, “Watch it you careless fools! If you so much scratch the paint of my jet I will have you flogged!” and I make point to stand in the doorway and welcome passengers aboard, “Welcome aboard MY aircraft, at least for the moment, that’s right you are on MY aircraft. Can you believe it? A young man like myself with his own aircraft? What? YES OF COURSE I CAN FLY TOO GRANDMA! Get this babushka off of my plane!”

Inside, when the Captain leaves, I become “Ming The Merciless”; drunk with my new power.

Okay so I mostly just think that stuff and don’t reveal those thoughts to anybody, but I do let out little maniacal laughs. On a recent occasion as I was “drunk power laughing” to myself and the Captain was grabbing some coffee, something happened that had never happened before to me and made me decide maybe I am not ready for the power of being in charge or ready to have children.

Dr. Suess based his story on real-life kids.

The passengers were boarding and the flight attendant yelled up to the front, “Marc you have some visitors.” This can only mean one thing: kids! I can’t help it. I love it when little kids come up to the front and ask questions. Maybe it is the kid in me who wants to show off his giant toy. Normally the Captain is usually the one who gets to entertain the kids and press buttons and make things light up, but on this occasion there was no captain; it was just me! Finally it was my turn to show off the giant moving video game. But before I could even respond to the flight attendant, I was ambushed by two little devil children with their energies levels turned up to eleven.

There names were Jesse and James. Which I am not making up. (What kind parents name their two sons

Profile picture of what could be Jesse. I mean how many mullet kids are running around out there? We’ll I suppose that’s a regional question. If you are taking your kids to hockey practice, probably a lot.

after an outlaw? The kind of parents that don’t even stick around to watch their bandit children terrorize a cockpit, but instead just walk to their seats and tell their boys, “Go f with the pilots for a while.” ) Jessie was probably six or seven, but hs light brown flat top/rat-tail (aka “party in the back”) hairstyle was from a much older age. He was definitely the more rambunctious of the two and the one that seemed hell-bent at breaking the plane. Before I could stop him, he jumped into the Captain’s seat and violently pushed the controls back and

Pretty sure Jesse and James’ dad looked a lot like this. Oh wait that’s my dad.

forth and began asking in one-second intervals, “What’s this do? What’s this do?”  I am not joking he was flipping switches that probably had never been flipped and which I still have no idea what they do.

At first I was naively operating under the assumption that a six year old would have some respect for adult authority and said things like, “Hey come on, like dont’ touch that.” But the little Tasmanian devil could not be stopped. I didn’t  even get a chance to do any of the cool pilot tricks, where I press a button and a buzzer an da light goes off, because I was too busy trying to prevent Jessie from pressing the one that causes the plane to self-destruct.

Oh yeah. I forgot about James. James was a little more subdued with his terrorist tactics, but in the end more damaging. He had a striking resemblance to the little kid in “Jerry Maguire.” The one with the blond flat top and the thick glasses. I am guessing he was a year younger than Jessie. Instead of jumping around the cockpit like his Tigger-esque brother, he just patiently tugged on my left arm (while I tried to use it contain his older brother.) At the same interval that his brother was asking, “What’s this do?” James was saying, “Hey mister, hey mister!” After what seemed like four days of this (maybe three minutes) and right after I had to get a little firm with Jessie, “Ah come on Jessie don’t suck on that (the Captains foam headset mic cover)!” I finally got to James:

“Hey Mister!”

“Yes James, what is it? Come on Jessie take that out of your mouth!”

“Mister can I ask you a question?” At this point my world froze. This is what I was hoping for all along. This was the moment when I would get to pass my experience and wisdom off to a little boy, and plant the seeds for a future pilot.

“Yes, James of course what is it?” I was beaming inside, oh what would he ask? Do you think I could become a pilot to? To which I would answer,”Of course you can. You have to work hard in school. Take a lot of math and science classes. Don’t do drugs and play a lot of video games (this last part is my own personal addition that the kids really love.) So what does he ask?

This is the kid from Jerry Maguire now. Crazy, right? I mean he’s super ripped but he’s exactly the same size!

“Mister, do you ever get that…you know that feeling…” Yes, yes, go on. That feeling that you want to fly airplanes? “You know that feeling in your butt where it kind of, you know, it burns?” What the Hell was I suppose to say to that? He wasn’t asking about being a pilot at all, but about having an itchy ass.He was only five so I didn’t want to make him feel bad or embarrassed, so I answered him the only way I knew how, with honesty.

“Yeah James. A burning butt? I get that sometimes.” You wouldn’t believe the look of joy and relief on his face.

He started yelling, “Me too. I get that too! Jessie, the pilot gets burning butt too!”

To which Jessie replied while ramming the yoke into the instrument panel, “Me too! I have burning butt right

now!”

To which James joined the chorus, “Me too, I have it right now too!”

I was feeling left out, “Great, great, we all have burning butts.” Right at the exact moment the flight attendant returned.

“Uh what are you guys talking about up here? I think it’s time for you boys to return to your seats.”

FACT: Sometimes your butt has, ya know, that burning feeling. There ain’t nothing you can do about but scratch. Me and my homies know this fo real!

Which for the first time that they actually listened to an adult; mostly because they wanted to share with the entire aircraft their new-found camaraderie with the pilot. I got to experience the Doppler effect as they ran all the way to the back of the plane yelling, “Mom, mom! The pilot has a burning butt too!” I can only imagine how many passengers were asking themselves, “What kind of a sick f%$# is flying this plane? Talking about his ass with children?”

When the Captain returned to the destroyed cockpit and asked, “What the Hell happened up here?” A certain exhaustion overcame me and I couldn’t find the energy to go into the entire story. All I could muster was,

“It’s a long story, but I’m glad your back.” He took a sip of coffee and stared at me suspiciously so I warned him. “You might want to clean off your microphone.”

“Why?”

“Well Brian, have you ever had a burning butt?”

“Let me ask you something Billy, does you ever get that burning feeling in your butt?”

Do you have any stories about flying with kids? I want to hear them!