Probably the smartest thing I did Thursday morning was not to pick out something black to wear. I almost did without thinking, black being the dominant color of my closet, but instead I picked the green dress I bought in Denver for St Patrick's Day. Kelly green, skirt barely covering my ass, and almost impervious to cat hair. That's a good thing when you have made an idiotic decision to put your son's cat in a sack and take it with you on the plane to Seattle. Of all the thousands of miles I have under my seat belt on US Air I have been extremely lucky to never have been stuck on the tarmac, until now. The AC seems to be busted and we're waiting for someone to sign off that it's safe to fly without it. I pull off the sweater I added as an after thought and checked to see if the cat was still alive. Tucked under the seat in front of me she sleeps soundly, even without the advantage of tuna flavored tranquilizers that she spit back into my hand after I tried to shove them down her throat.
I am not a woman to sit by and let life happen to me. Our flight from Charlotte leaves at 5:45. It is already 4:50 and the flight takes 38 minutes. I scoot down the narrow aisle to speak to the two blond flight attendants. They are sweet and gracious but they offer no solution. “Well ,” says blond number one, “we might get there in time.” I can almost see her shaking her head no as she says it. Blond number two directs me to the man standing outside the door. “He's the manager”, she says deferentially. I put on my sad face and go speak to him softly. “What can I do? Is there anyway we can get to Seattle tonight?” He says positively there is no way to get me there. A tear rolls down my face and I put that same tear in my voice as I explain that I have a cat in a sack and a grandson waiting in Seattle, my first. “Stephen,” I say, reading the tag on his shirt as touch his arm and implore, “ Are you sure there are no flights to the west coast tonight?” I look into the eyes of this kind young Southern gentleman and I know the answer.
Two hours later I am sitting on a United Air flight to Chicago, one that was overbooked and only had room for one person. I have my cat, my computer and no promise of ever seeing my husband or my baggage again. I called my son to let him know about the sorry turn of events, but even as we spoke the lady beside me who had over heard my tale of woe tapped my shoulder. I looked up and my husband was coming down the aisle. The nice man beside him switches places with me and we sit together with congenial cat lovers all around us. I chat with a cute engineer from Winchester and a very young looking woman in front of me who has a grandchild due in March. We pet the cat and the two hour flight is over in record time. In Chicago she leads the way to the gate and all of us, engineer, husband, myself and the cat in the sack on my back.
On the long flight to Seattle we are not so lucky. My husband draws a drunken man eating pizza in 8E and I am seated in 20 E between a sexually ambiguous tattooed person in a baseball cap and an enormously fat man who cannot fit between the arm rests. I graciously offer to raise the one between us and fortunately he takes the offer in the spirit it was given, but still spills over onto more than a quarter of my space. The tattooed person never speaks a word for the 5 hour flight but John, my girth challenged seat-mate, entertains me with musical snoring. The cat, terrified beyond noise sits quietly at my feet, occasionally nudging me with her head through the mesh zippered front.
An hour later my two bottles of water and three cups of coffee catch up with me. I wake John and apologize that I must answer natures call. When I return John is still gone so I run to the front to see my husband briefly. He is siting in first class with an empty seat beside him. Brief joy, then I find that he was moved so the man beside him didn't heave on him and I cannot sit there without paying 40 dollars. I race back to John and make a quick deal. Soon he is sitting in the roomy chair in front of the plane and I am sitting in my now roomy seat beside my husband. I pull the cat up in my lap and reassure her that all is well. I sleep for a bit and soon the city flows out beneath the plane wing, the lights more copper colored than emerald, a beautiful sight to behold.
It took another 45 minutes to explain the bag situation to the nice lady at the United counter and tell her where to deliver them the next day. Then the new dad is waiting at the curb to take us all away. I give Diana the traveling cat a final scratch as my son drops us off at what he describes as a sketchy part of town. I'm thinking it would have been nice if he had told me that when he recommended the hotel, but the room is clean if dated and they have wifi. This morning my room phone rang with the news that the bags were here. All is sorted, hung and tucked away now and I am off to find coffee while my husband snores. I figure it's Seattle so I won't have to go far.
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