Bryan and Barbies

 I am spending the last few unscheduled days of our Vermont vacation in a state of dizzying denial and angst about our return to Los Angeles. I am in a panic about the packed schedule that awaits our return. I think the paranoia of our flying back has caused a cerebral bleed. Bryan, my responsible hubby who’s returned to the world of work and rigid deadlines, flies back here to spend July 4^th weekend with us and then escort all 5 of us safely home. He was tasked by our 7-year-old daughter to bring two of her barbies with him when he comes (1 Ken doll and 1 Blond Barbie. I don’t want to dwell on the reasons for the doll with a preferred hair color).

During one of our phone conversations, he says, “None of her Barbies had clothes on. Should we be worried?” Like all of my children’s slightly alarming behavior, I respond with the “self-soothing, but-secretly-worried” response of “I’m sure it’s just a phase, Sweetie.” He goes on to talk about how he won’t be bringing anything other than his carry-on backpack with him since he has clothes here and it will mean he can travel back with an extra suitcase of ours. I am only now half listening because somewhere in the normally closed-off “pent-up crazy, she’s lost it” room of my brain, I have now connected a stoic, solemn Bryan with two naked Barbies in his travel backpack. My imagination fills in the pictures. Bryan at TSA pre-check delicately removing the Barbies from his backpack so they can lie in a grey x-ray trey of their own and responding to the incredulous look on the security guard’s face with this strait-faced retort “they get claustrophobic in x-ray machines.” It gets worse. I’ve now pictured him sitting on the plane and buckling the Barbies into the seat next to him. When he’s approached by the person whose seat they’re taking, he says “Let me check how Ken and Barbie feel about changing seats. “ Then, I imagine him working through his in-flight emotional problems by using the dolls for role-play.  

Barbie: “Ken, sometimes we can’t always have the drink we want. There’s no reason to take our anger out on the nice flight attendant”

Ken: “It’s not fair! You let me have a rum and coke with cookies last time!”

Barbie: “Perhaps Ken, if you used your inside voice, I would listen to a more reasonable request.”

This is actually a method parents are asked to use when dealing with an irrationally explosive child. At this point, I imagine Bryan luxuriating quietly in a remote seat of the plane or wearing a straight-jacket in the security offices at LAX.

When Bryan finally breaks me from my reverie, I tell him I’ve devised a payback plan for all those times we’ve been judged and found lacking as parents traveling with 4 small kids. If only he had the same twisted sense of humor my spiraling-back-to-reality brain has. I’d pay good money to see the look on that security guard’s face.