The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

Years ago my family went to visit relatives in Vegas for New Years.

Along with our children, we took a 10-month baby boy that we were fostering at the time and one of our dogs (which Southwest allows because my partner and two of our kids are deaf). Upon landing, we waited at baggage claim only to discover that our luggage had been lost. It never was recovered, but that was just the beginning of our vacation from hell.

The relatives we stayed with in Sin City were fighting and the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. At the New Year's Eve party I managed to get food poisoning and spent the next 48 hours either sleeping or running to the bathroom to greet my porcelain friend. Finally, we boarded our flight for home. Little did I know, there was one last ghastly act in this melodrama.

Upon take off we gave the baby a bottle of milk because we read in some darn parenting magazine that it keeps infants from screaming as the plane climbs to 30,000 feet. It worked, but ten minutes later this sweet baby awoke to reenact a scene from The Exorcist. His eyes bulged as he violently hurled sour milk over at least two rows of unexpecting passengers. It was a mess beyond belief. The flight attendant graciously began to clean up passengers, seats, carry-on bags, walls and the floor - probably using the airplane's entire supply of paper towels. Another attendant smiled and walked the length of the aircraft spraying disinfectant with the charm of Miss America. Just as the passengers calmed down and the stench began to subside, the unthinkable happened....

Our precious little dog took a huge dump smack dab in the middle of the aisle.

Now things were dangerous. If the pilot had taken a vote I'm quite certain the passengers would have agreed to toss the queer-deaf-viral family out the emergency exit. It seemed like decades, but we finally landed and cruised to the gate. As we exited the airplane, the flight attendant said - and I kid you not - "Thanks for flying, pooping, and barfing with Southwest!"

Bill Cosby once said, "You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything... you can survive it." I guess what's important is to embrace all of life's experiences, even the unpleasant ones, and try to find the humor in them. Sometimes conflict leads to connection, heartache turns to joy, and periods of stressing transform into blessing. Couples and families that can access comedy in the midst of life's dreadful moments tend to be much more resilient than those who emphasize the negative.

Besides, we learn from every life experience. On the next flight to Vegas, I'll know to carry on our luggage, pack the family-size bottle of Pepto-Bismol, and put a diaper on the pooch.