I sat on the uncomfortably cold tile floor of Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta Georgia. We had just landed from our 8 hour red eye flight from Venice. The three of us siblings were lined up against the terminal wall waiting for some word from my parents on our connecting flight home. I sat there absolutely exhausted. There was the aching feeling in my stomach of digesting processed airplane food, if you can even call it food. My dad walked up to the electronic flight board to check the gate number of our Alitalia flight home. He returned shortly after and stormed over to his carryon luggage and ripped it open. He ripped out all the contents until he found the families passports and boarding passes. He flew over to the sweaty ticket line that snaked around the entire Alitalia section of the airport. Instantly I knew we had flight troubles. I looked up to my mother who was no longer trying to entertain my sister with card games, but was now following after my enraged father to the ticket counter. Before any info was relayed to me from my parents I knew the flight was cancelled. Surprisingly it didn’t bother me. Instead I felt content that I was able to keep my cool during the whole situation unlike my dad who lost his temper instantly. All the feelings of exhaustion and eagerness to get home took a back seat to my delight for the misery my dad was enduring. I had never had any serious angry feelings toward my father that I would have enjoyed seeing him enraged, I just think that I was as a 13 year old pubescent teen it is nice to feel like you are superior to your parents. I can remember my time at summer camp and how I felt waiting in line for that one 3 musketeer’s bar I got once a week and the burning impatience I had. At that moment in the airport at age 13 I showed a glimpse of maturity through lessons learned at sleep away camp.
