T O D A Y

Drama Queen candidates
Bad trips

Contestant No. 1
Contestant No. 2
Contestant No. 3

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R E C E N T L Y

Censorship and sensibility
By Inda Schaenen
Should kids be able to read anything they want?
(07/17/98)

Slice of life
By Maurine Shores
Memories of a cake that tasted like summer
(07/16/98)

A counterculture childhood
By Lisa Michaels
In an excerpt from her new book, the author remembers being 3 years old and waving a Viet Cong flag
(07/15/98)

Beach babble on
By Polly Shulman
A selection of books immerses kids in a wetter, wavier world
(07/14/98)

A masterful Machiavellian matriarch
By Lesley Gold
For 24 years Rep. Pat Schroeder cleaned two houses
(07/13/98)

ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

My child is a screaming bundle of joy
By Elisabeth Gruner

Mariah's birthday is three days after Christmas, as she still tells everyone who asks (and many who don't). Coincidentally, the MLA convention (the Modern Language Association, for those of you lucky enough not to be seeking careers in literature) is always held Dec. 27 to 30. My friends and I began, at some point during our grad school careers, to suspect that the schedule had been cooked up by men eager to get away from home during the craziness of the holidays. Those of us yearning to get into the profession (to be a lit professor) have to haul ourselves to wherever the convention is held for the dreaded MLA interview, which is basically an hour in a hotel room with a group of bored and stuffy professors, trotting out your best bon mots about teaching and research, only to go home and wait to see if they call for the "campus visit" or "flyback" sometime after their semester begins.

That year, the convention was being held in San Francisco, so Mark, Mariah and I all decided to fly there together. (We were actually flying into Oakland because it was cheaper.) Mariah wasn't even 2 yet, so she could travel for free ... or so we thought. We were stopped at the ticket counter by an officious airline representative who said, "You need a ticket for that child." "She's not 2 yet," we said. "She flies free." Well, apparently she doesn't. Big for her age, and extremely articulate (something we usually celebrated), she had the agent convinced we were trying to get away with something. We hadn't brought her birth certificate (who does, when taking an hour flight up the coast?). We had no proof. We were scum. After some angry discussion -- OK, some yelling -- we bought a ticket. What else could we do? The agent reluctantly "allowed" us to buy her ticket at the same discount price we'd paid, acknowledging that there were some discounts for young fry. Gee, thanks.

So we got on the plane. At least, with a paid-for seat, we could guarantee a spot for Mariah's car seat. So we buckled it in and settled down. Not that she spent a minute in the seat -- no, she had to be on my lap or Mark's, or walking up and down the aisles. But we made it. In Oakland, we schlepped our luggage (including car seat and portable crib) off the baggage carousel and onto the subway, BART, for the trip across the bay to San Francisco. While on BART, our darling child, our bundle of joy, was shrieking, nonstop, for the whole trip. The car emptied quickly as fellow travelers gave us the evil eye. Wicked parents, their looks said. At this point, we could only agree. Who brings a kid to a convention anyway? People who want to spend their kid's birthday with her, I guess.

When we arrived at the hotel, it was immediately apparent who was there for the convention. Scruffy, unshaven grad students loaded down with portable computers, backpacks, suit bags, anxiously were waving away bellhops as fur-laden dowagers paraded through the lobby, with small entourages following them with beautiful lightweight luggage. Yes, we were poor and no, we didn't belong.

Mariah's shrieks turned out to be an ear infection. Nob Hill hotels don't have pharmacies with baby Tylenol. Mark found some, somewhere, I didn't care where, and Mariah finally fell into a sound sleep. I, on the other hand, didn't keep food down for three days, during which time I failed to impress a variety of interviewers who had jobs I didn't want. We flew back to Los Angeles chastened, exhausted and hungry. Did we ever celebrate her birthday? I forget. It rained a lot. We were sad.

Oh, the airline did refund us the fare for the outbound portion of Mariah's ticket, once we wrote them and sent a copy of the birth certificate. And they included a lovely stuffed animal for her. Happy belated birthday, Mariah.
SALON | June 21, 1998

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