Let me start by saying I am not one of those girls that harbor secret resentment toward cheerleaders.  Actually, I was friends with some cheerleaders in high school.  (To be fair, it helped that I went to a school where the cheerleaders could form complete sentences).  I’m into school spirit.  Heck, I’ll watch Bring it On with you anytime.

But seriously.  I do NOT want to be stuck with an entire team of them on an airplane.

I know, I know.  I just got back from Italy and should be regaling you with tales of my time abroad.  Another day, folks.  Today Baby is having a bad day, so I’m having a bad day.  And when I have a bad day, I turn to my blog to vent.  Enter: Cheerleaders.

Before I vent, let me add a positive note: I have the best baby ever (even on her bad days).  She really is a stellar traveler.  In case you don’t believe me, you should at least believe the man in Business Class who sat right across the partition from us (we were in the bulkhead).  You know he boarded the plane, saw Elisabeth behind the flimsy curtain and thought, “Awww Hell no!  I did NOT pay all this money to listen to a screaming baby for the next nine hours!” At least that’s what I would have thought.  As we were deplaning, that man – with more enthusiasm than anyone should have after a nine-hour flight – said, “You have the best baby!  Seriously.  The best baby!  I have two and they weren’t like that.  Best baby ever!”  In case I didn’t get the point, walking to baggage claim he exclaimed again, “Man, the best baby!”  It was like he had won a prize by sitting near her.  So there you go.  Rock on, Elisabeth.

But back to the cheerleaders.

You know when you’ve been traveling for around 20 hours and you’ve had 2 flights and a 4 hour layover and you only have one 2-hour flight left and really what’s 2 hours after a 9 hour flight and there’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel?  And then that final 2-hour flight is delayed and you’re so physically and mentally exhausted from traveling all day with a baby on virtually no sleep and oh yeah you have movers coming the next morning at 8AM and that light gets a little dimmer?  And then you finally board and collapse and try to get the baby to sleep so you can catch a little shut eye because your body thinks it is 2AM but then AN ENTIRE TEAM OF HIGH SCHOOL CHEERLEADERS BOARDS RIGHT BEHIND YOU?  That light extinguishes.  And you might cry.

I had encountered these cheerleaders during my layover.  They were walking behind me, all wearing matching blue t-shirts, engaging in a mind-numbingly inane conversation (I’ll credit that to them being teenagers, not cheerleaders).  I managed to escape them when, after commenting on the laziness of some people, they stepped on the moving walkway.  Once I had settled at my gate, I saw them approaching but breathed a sigh of relief when they congregated a few gates down.  I just couldn’t handle all the peppiness right then.  But alas, my relief did not last.  For it was but moments after taking my seat on the plane that I saw the flash of a blue shirt.  Then another.  And another.  Did you see Snakes on a Plane?  Cheerleaders on a Plane is so much more horrifying.  At least snakes are quiet.

Their group made up about half the plane, I would guess.  It didn’t take long for the high-pitched shrieks and the yelling down the aisles at each other and the cheer clapping to begin.  Was it really necessary to practice their clapping on a flight?

I began to wonder what I had done to deserve such karmic retribution.  Then I began to wonder, where the heck are their chaperones!?  As it turns out, one of them was scared of flying and had taken 4 Xanax on her first flight, so I’m guessing she didn’t notice the shrieking and yelling and clapping.  I was thisclose to telling those nearest me that it really wasn’t appropriate to yell on an airplane and disturb all the other passengers when I realized that would officially complete my transformation into my mother, and refrained.

Them

Me

Now here’s the kicker: They weren’t just cheerleaders.  They were Mormon cheerleaders.  At least some of them were.  What kind of person was I to be hating on Mormon cheerleaders when you know that when they are not gathered together in a confined space on the way to a cheer competition they are probably just the loveliest, sweetest kids?  Their incessant chatter wasn’t laced with promiscuities or profanities.  They weren’t being mean or catty.  In fact, they were coloring.  (I kid you not; one of them had a Disney coloring book.)  And they even threw out some “We’re from Utah!” jokes!

But it boils down to this: They were still cheerleaders.  Loud cheerleaders.  Excessively perky cheerleaders.  With unnaturally high-pitched voices.  Practicing synchronized clapping routines.  And secret handshakes.  On a night flight after a really, really long day.  Instead of sleeping, I had to listen to the one closest to me flirt with a young Marine while coloring in Simba.  You can’t make that ish up.

All the while my poor baby just stared at me with the most pitiful look that said, “Mommy I’m so tired but there’s just… so… much… clapping!”

This brings me back to Baby’s bad day.  I’m S!-U!-R!-E! that she’s C!-R!-A!-N!-K!-Y! because of those cheerleaders.  Yeah, 2 days later.  That kind of trauma stays with you.