a flight to remember...

I had the most interesting experience on my return flight from Portland, OR today.  The flight was full and seating scarce.  Shortly after taking my isle seat, a mother with three children boarded the plane.  None of them had seats together.  Her six year old son, Kaleb sat right next to me.  The mother rejected my offer to switch seats, a subtle hint that I was in for something special.  Kaleb and I immediately struck up a conversation, thanks to his absence of any inhibition.  He immediately challenged me to try and spell his name, this was before he had told me his name of course.  I told him that I didn't know his name yet.  He informed me, along with approximately six other isles thanks to volume, that his name was Kaleb.  I immediately took the challenge, declaring that I knew how to spell his name, of course I was thinking the Biblical spelling...silly me.  I spoke with confidence, "C-A-L-E-B!"  He unbuckled himself, stood over me, hit me on the head, and laughed out loud, proclaiming, "That's not how you spell my name, dummy!"  I was cracking up as he corrected my spelling.  Everyone was busting up.  His mother yelled out from several isles back, "Kaleb, sit down and leave that man alone!"  Just then the pilots voice came over the intercom and requested the crew to prepare for takeoff.  Kaleb yells back at the announcement as if the pilot was actually in front him, "It's about time!"  I immediately began to pray for Divine intervention, requesting a deep slumber to come over Kaleb, or me, lasting the full duration of the flight, neither of which occurred.  In a situation like this there is only one thing a man can do - if you can't beat em' (literally), join em', and I did.  We played video games, he listened to my downloaded music with my high-tech head phones, we thumb wrestled, he ate a candy necklace and enjoyed shooting the wet sticky candy from his teeth on me, leaving spittle on my arm, jeans, shirt, and cheek.  When we landed, I was a sticky mess and exhausted, but Kaleb had a new friend.  As we touched down, I felt Kaleb's head fall heavily on my shoulder and stay there, all the while he was completely silent (for the first time since we took off, I may add).  We punched knuckles in the lobby and said goodbye.  I admit that I stopped into the men's room to wash up.  One man asked me while watching me basically take a bath at the sink and wash my clothes, "what happened to you?"  I turned and said with a smile, "Kaleb with a K..."  He had no clue what I was talking about.