Planes, Trains, Automobiles and a chicken costume

St. Louis is an all right city to live in. It's got its high points(low cost of living, sports teams, lots of free stuff to do) and it's low(high crime, looks like a bomb went off in half the city, way too much sprawl). So I like to get out as much as possible with kiddo and let her experience some other places. I know she is only 2.5, so really its more for me than her, but I like to take her along.

This leads us to travel quite a bit. We go to the Lake of the Ozarks constantly in the summer, Florida to visit Great Grandma and hit the beach, and recently we went to see some good friends in Cleveland for Halloween. This leads to me flying or taking Amtrak with kiddo quite a bit. I hate to drive by myself with her because she can be known to get bored and scream at the top of her lungs. So I prefer to have someone else do the navigating so I can read, color, play peek-a-boo whatever keeps her occupied. Apparently, I am the only man in the world that travels alone with a toddler. You would not believe the questions I get asked.

Question:
"The wife is letting you travel alone? She is brave."
Answer:
I usually just point to my ring finger.
Question:
"Where is her mom?"
Answer:
"I have no idea, but the safe money is on Target or Big Lots."
or alternate "Not with us." That usually leaves them bewildered.

I have gotten every variant of these, they used to bother me, now I just let it roll. Shortly after her mom and I split up, I took kiddo on a flight to Florida. I usually fly Southwest because screaming babies are the norm. Now I am sure I am quite a sight on a plane stooped over because I'm six and a half feet tall with a little girl in tow, so the flight attendant started a conversation with me and found out it was just us, blah, blah, blah. I think nothing of it. A little while later after all the pre-flight instructions she proceeds to tell the entire cabin about the brave dad and daughter traveling all by themselves! I'm mortified the whole cabin is looking around thinking who is this nutjob and where is this girls mommy? She is pointing at me, I do some dorky half wave and bury my head in SkyMall. Thankfully I didn't have anyone sitting next to us to strike up a conversation. She gives us extra attention the rest of the flight, two rounds of peanuts, hooray! She even puts kiddos juice in her sippy cup for me. Then I realized I'm on to something here, people look at us and get sad and want to help. I am taking full advantage of this. I have had old ladies carry bags for me, people let me go first in line, hell I even got a free cell charger by telling a lady at T-Mobile I needed to charge my phone so I could call kiddos mom and tell her when I would drop kiddo off. The other day on my way to Cleveland we woke up at 7:45 our flight is at 8:50. I'm out the door at 8:05 on the phone with Southwest screaming, "We aren't gonna make the flight, hold the plane!!!" She tells me to park in short term and run inside while taking our shoes off for security. I run in the front door of the terminal and I kid you not there was a Southwest worker waiting for us. She yelled, "your the guy going to Cleveland with his daughter and a chicken costume right?" Thats us I exclaimed. She had boarding passes, and a tag for my bag, took it from me and we got through security in record time and to the gate with five minutes to spare. Our bag even made it to Cleveland. You think they would of done that for Joe Schmoe that was going to a client meeting in Cleveland? Highly doubtful.

I figure if society is going to bend over backwards to help me out, instead of it ticking me off, I'm going to keep my mouth shut and use every advantage we can get.
So if you see the kiddo and I lumbering through the airport, train station, etc. Stop and say hello, and why yes, I could use some exta help with our bags.