6:30 a.m. on the flight from DC to Miami
Bars Should Have Umbrella Strollers
I just walked into a parallel universe. Upon our 4:45 a.m. arrival at Dulles Airport, Oliver and I were both half asleep and more than a little anxious (as I’ve mentioned before, that’s just the way we are). All of the expected obstacles were there: the juggling act with bags and a stroller, the long lines, the tight time schedule, and of course the fact that even though we called yesterday to verify our seat assignments, my three year old and I were not seated together.
I kind of knew this would happen since we didn’t buy our tickets at the same time, and they were reserved on such short notice. But THAT IS WHY we (meaning Chris) called to actually talk to a person at American Airlines who could verify that we would be seated next to each other. Not across the aisle, not in adjoining rows, and not at opposite ends of the plane.
With a flight at 6:00 a.m. and check in lines wrapped several layers deep, I opted for self check in. So I was electronically informed of the problem. I was able to fix our seats for the connecting flight from Miami to Key West, but didn’t have any luck with the first flight. This is where I can’t get anyone’s attention for 20 minutes and then when I finally do get a frazzled ticket agent to look at me, I receive the kind of customer service that makes people pull out hunting rifles and start firing at will. Right? WRONG. The cheerful (at 4:45 a.m. no less!) and accommodating “Sharon G.” not only seemed interested in helping us, she didn’t say, “excuse me ma’am, please let me finish talking,” once. Alas, there was only so much she could do for us. Even Sharon G. could not find us seats together. The best she could do was to seat us across the aisle so that we could “ask another passenger to switch with one of us.” Oh Sharon G., you are so naïve… People traveling this early in the morning have their own agendas and priorities. And they’re cranky. I wasn’t willing to risk things not working out and have Oliver, who can change moods on a dime, have a grand mal seizure when he saw that I wasn’t sitting next to him. Besides, my neighbor had the same experience recently, and not ONE person on her full-size passenger plane would acknowledge her problem, let alone help.
So the one glitch in the process was that regardless of how much Sharon G. would have loved to charter a private jet for us, we had to pay to upgrade to first class. As you can imagine, I was devastated. Seriously though, I wouldn’t normally waste money on something like that – but I didn’t see any other option, and the upgrade charge was only $90 per ticket. I know, that’s not insignificant – but in light of the fact that we were willing to pay a lot more than we did for the reasonably priced tickets we bought, I considered it a wash. Since this upgrade fee would be higher if done by a ticket agent, it needed to be executed at a self check in station. And to put a cherry on top of what was already one of the best air travel check in experiences I’ve ever had, Sharon G. came around the counter and performed the seat reassignment for me. The world needs more people like Sharon G. I am going to write a letter to American Airlines. And I’m completely serious about that.
So far, Oliver has been an ideal companion. It’s kind of like traveling with a good natured drunk person. He’s a little out of it, but happy to follow wherever I lead. He can be a bit loud at times, but he’s also easily distracted by the action around him and utterly enchanted with any redirection I throw his way. He slumped in the umbrella stroller during the entire seat assignment process and I had to check him a couple of times to make sure he hadn’t passed out. There was a mild fracas when he had to relinquish his blankie at security (as in “give me my keys man – hey, I want my keys!”). But I was able to whisk him through quickly enough to avoid a full blown panic attack. He was generally happy enough to just sit in the umbrella stroller and go with the flow. With all of the check in hoopla, we boarded the plane minutes after arriving at the gate. And when we got to our seats, he flopped down and gave me a big goofy grin that basically said, “I love you man.” Yeah – aside from the initial confusion, it was pretty seamless. Makes me think that bars might want to invest in large umbrella strollers for their patrons who are saddled with dead weight drunk friends to carry home.
10:00 a.m. on the flight from Miami to Key West
Back Up In the Air, Please.
Okay – so it is actually closer to 11:30 a.m. now. But that flight was so short that by the time I thought I could take out my laptop, it was almost time to put it away. It has been a year since we last made this trip to see my parents. Oliver is currently splashing in the pool with my Dad. We’re going to the hospital at 1:00 p.m. to have lunch with Mom. She should have seen her cancer doctor by then – in fact he arrived on the same flight we did.
The first flight was absolute heaven until the moment we were told to turn off all authorized electronic equipment. I knew that when I informed Oliver that we would have to put the Wiggles away for a while, he would be most distressed. And if you’d call five minutes of hysterical screaming “distressed” then that pretty much covers it. He simply could not understand why I would pull the plug on Captain Feathersword like that. It was so uncool! In between exclamations of “Wiggles!”, “On please!”and “Boat!” – I decided it was time to be a responsible parent and end the madness. So I tried giving him candy. He must have been really upset, because he will usually come running if someone two floors away whispers the word candy. But he was so irate (that I thought I could BUY him like that!), he wanted nothing to do with the lollipop. Finally I managed to get him interested in the fact that we were landing, but that kind of backfired when he decided to associate landing with the end of his Wiggles viewing. So then he started pointing his finger in the air and yelling, “back up in the air! Please!” (though in between sobs it sounded more like, “back-gasp-up-gasp-air-gasp-please!”). Finally, the excitement of landing was just too much. All of those tiny houses and cars – how could he stay mad? He kept yelling, “uh oh – watch out!” to the innocent bystanders since it was quite obvious that we were bearing down on them. At this point, I offered him the candy again (why not? It was out.) and he said “Oh, a lollipop!” – like he hadn’t just thrown in my face minutes before.
Our next flight boarded fairly quickly after that, but I don’t even know if it would have mattered. Oliver was back to looking comatose in his stroller with his blanket wrapped around his head. Travel is exhausting. But he perked up when he realized that we were getting on another plane. That must herald the return of the Wiggles. Yeah planes!
Our connecting flight was on a prop plane – but NOT a puddle jumper. I will never fly on a cessna again – that was like being in Herbie the Love Bug. No, it was one of those little American Eagle planes. So this was also very exciting. We got to ride on a shuttle (look at ALL the planes!) and then walk up stairs (we LOVE stairs!) to get onto our little plane. As we all started boarding from the back of the plane, the pilot instructed us to sit in “the middle.” Since our seats were already in the middle, this worked for us. I guess they REALLY didn’t want anyone in the front of the plane because a formidable looking flight attendant was standing sentry at the threshold of what I assume must be “the front.” She very sweetly told everyone that they could really sit wherever they wanted since there were many empty seats (as long as we remained in the middle damn it).
Actually, our flight attendant was very nice and made a point of saying hello to Oliver before politely asking me to do a better job of tightening his seatbelt. But what was probably most interesting about our flight attendant is that she was (for lack of a better word), a tranny. That is to say that she was a man either going through transition or fully transitioned to becoming a woman (I’m not presuming that you don’t know what a transvestite is – I’m just trying to be specific about which direction the transition was taking). ANYWAY – I have to say, I just love Key West.
Oliver made a valiant effort to rally for round two of the Wiggles, but he started falling asleep as soon as we were in the air. I perused Us Weekly until I thought it looked like it was okay to use the computer (must have missed the announcement), and had just barely read through some things before it was time to shut down again. Poor Oliver, I had to shake him awake when we landed, and he was very anxious about where we were and what my Dad wanted with us (he’s still little – so when people are out of context, he doesn’t always recognize them right away). And he looked fairly stricken when we pulled into the driveway of my parents’ house (because you know – I might leave him there). But the minute he could see through the front door, he was home. And so am I. I don’t blame him for being apprehensive about landing in this initially unfamiliar place. He doesn’t know what to expect here. And neither do I. We don’t know what the doctor will say – but we know what we want him to say. We are past hoping for the best case scenario – but we’re now praying that it’s not the worst. But for the next hour or so, we’ll splash in the pool, enjoy the sun and rediscover all of the things we loved when we were here last year. For now, we’ll just live for now.
