I don't mind screaming children so much as I mind their doting mothers. Eyeing the antics of the parent, sometimes you can clearly see why their child is screaming. Recently, believe it or not, I heard a 1-year-old, coddled in the arms of her exuberant mother, scream at the top of its lungs, "I am not a Chihuahua!"

It all started when I sat down in the airplane seat that sandwiched me between my husband on the aisle and Psycho Mom at the window seat.

I excused myself as I sat down, but the mother didn't make eye contact with me. She couldn't; she was too busy having an intense conversation with her baby. She was, in fact, reading the in-flight magazine to her — in four different languages! Perhaps this in-flight magazine was the study text for the Aoyama Gakuin kindergarten entrance examination — hey, it's never too early to start; the exam is only three years away! "Man, this is going to be a long flight," I thought to myself.