Well, after three eventful weeks in San Diego, it was time to head back to the frozen frontier.
One of the hard things about vacation is the looming spectre of The Trip Home, especially if the trip down wasn’t pleasant. I think we were about two and half weeks into our trip when my longing for my own bed started to be balanced by a sense of foreboding and dread. Oh, that 2011 could’ve actually lived up to all the sci-fi movie promises…maybe we could just get beamed home?
Surely, I thought, all the wisdom I gained from our harrowing trip south would make the return trip easier – little pearls such as:
· Maniacally barking dog on your head + screaming toddler clinging to your leg like a barnacle = quick trip through TSA line with no pat-downs or irradiation!
· Two doses of prescription animal sedative PLUS an additional dose of Benadryl will not actually kill a 9 lb bichon frise. But he will be very, very quiet.
· EVERYONE has to go potty, even if only one person has to. EVERYONE sits on the potty – using bribery and threats as needed – unless you want to spend the whole layover going back and forth between the gate and the nearest restroom.
So, with these experiences (and more) under my belt and the added benefit of not leaving in the middle of the night, we headed off to the airport. There was no way it could be as bad as the trip down…
The San Diego airport offers Skycap service with curb-side check-in. Sounded like the way to go to me, given all the stuff we had to schlep. The skycap lady was even cool with the dog – I just had to go into the regular check-in desk to pay the pet fee. No problem. Smooth sailing. Until we got to the gate.
I settled the kids in some seats and got out our tickets to get ready to board, and realized that my confirmed seats were totally ignored, and we had been reassigned to four different seats all separate from each other all over the plane. Awesome. I go to the gate clerk and explain that our seats had been reassigned. She immediately got all defensive with me and said, “WE didn’t do anything. The Skycaps did. You should know better than to use the skycaps. They don't know how to handle seats. You should've known better!” What? So, the person sitting at the rather permanent looking “Alaska Airlines” desk outside in an Alaska Airlines uniform isn’t actually an airline employee, but an extremely well-disguised rogue seat-stealer? Who knew!!
The whole time she was working on finding us new seats, she kept harping on me. “Especially since you’re traveling with small children, you shouldn’t use the skycaps. You really should’ve known better.” Ummm, ok. I’m pretty sure a single mother traveling alone with three kids and a dog needs all the help she can get, and isn’t that what the skycaps are for? She said it so many times that I wondered if she was just trying to keep herself from calling me stupid outright. OK, lady, if you want to get nasty about it, let’s compare educational degrees and jobs and we’ll see. (Yes, I kept this extremely uncharitable thought to myself, but I will admit it felt kind of good to write it out there. ;-)
So I gather up the kids, dog, and our stuff (which was no mean feat, as LB had decided that one of the other gates looked much more attractive and he kept running over trying to get on that plane), and we head up to the door. The woman checking our boarding passes looked at me and said, “You’re traveling with a dog?” I said yes, and patted Basil’s carrier. He had been completely silent up to that point, but when I patted the carrier he let out a feeble, Benadryl-soaked “oof.” She got a stern look on her face and said, “You need ENSURE that that dog is ABSOLUTELY quiet before the plane can takeoff.” I smiled and said, “Well, he’s had his medicine, and I guess it will kick in when it kicks in.” She ROLLS HER EYES AT ME, and says, “Oh really, will it?” REALLY???? What was I supposed to say next? “Ok, I guess I’ll just have to shrink myself, inject myself into his bloodstream, and handcarry the sedative to his brain for you.” I just gritted my teeth and moved on. I feel bad for any crying infants that travel on Alaska Airlines. Do they get muzzled?
At least the stewardesses on the plane were nice. We were in the very last row, but fortunately had it all to ourselves. The stewardesses introduced themselves to all my kids and not only offered to bring our drinks first (because we normally would have been last), but came to us and offered any of the available snacks that were normally for sale for free. We had plenty of our own, but it was nice to have someone appreciate the difficulty in travelling with kids. I bet she was a mom.
Too bad the good cheer ended there. We arrived in Portland, and took on the unpleasant take-the-dog-outside-and-back-in-through-security task, which was even more fun because it was pouring rain. There was one tiny island with a fenced-in bush in the pickup area, so we all huddled on the edge of the island and I threaded Basil's leash through the wires and plopped him next to the bush. Praise the Lord, my smart little dog realized that there was no messing about and did his business. We got back in and through security with nearly no tears this time (!) until the very end, as all of our backpacks were coming out of the xray machine. The girls had their tiny (and I mean miniscule, definitely less than 3 oz) snowglobes from The Nutcracker in their backpacks -- and TSA confiscated them! Again, REALLY? Little did I know that tiny snowglobes don't contain water, but a "highly flammable and dangerous substance" according to the very important TSA agent. The security folks in San Diego didn't notice them, or I could've handed them back to my parents -- so I had no choice but to let him take them. I hope when he went to sleep that night, he was plagued by visions of two sweet little girls with trembling chins trying not to cry when they were told that their only souvenirs from their big night out with Mommy were gone forever. I know I felt much safer knowing those snowglobes were off the plane. ????!!!!????
Then it was off to the gate for more seat-changing fun, as the skycap had messed up our confirmed seats for both legs of the trip. The gate clerk stated, "Well, there are three families ahead of you, and this is a full flight, so don't expect much." Really, all I expected was for my confirmed seats to be honored. She called me back up about five minutes later and said, "Well, no one wanted to move for you, so if you want to go start asking people yourself, feel free." Let me get this straight -- Alaska Airlines (who was responsible for the mistake) wanted my two year old son to sit by himself with complete strangers unless I approached all the passengers myself one by one, asked them their seat assignment, and begged them to move? This was beyond atrocious customer service, but of course by the time she told me this, the flight was boarding and I had no recourse but to get on the plane and try to figure something out once on board.
Then it was off to the gate for more seat-changing fun, as the skycap had messed up our confirmed seats for both legs of the trip. The gate clerk stated, "Well, there are three families ahead of you, and this is a full flight, so don't expect much." Really, all I expected was for my confirmed seats to be honored. She called me back up about five minutes later and said, "Well, no one wanted to move for you, so if you want to go start asking people yourself, feel free." Let me get this straight -- Alaska Airlines (who was responsible for the mistake) wanted my two year old son to sit by himself with complete strangers unless I approached all the passengers myself one by one, asked them their seat assignment, and begged them to move? This was beyond atrocious customer service, but of course by the time she told me this, the flight was boarding and I had no recourse but to get on the plane and try to figure something out once on board.
As I was tucking my pet carrier under my seat, the stewardess came up and rather tersely said, "You have to get out of the aisle. You're creating a backlog." At this point, I had been spoken to rudely, practically called stupid, had my confirmed seats disregarded, and had been separated from my children. I had had enough, and I told the stewardess this in no uncertain terms.
Apparently, you have to practically throw a tantrum to get any customer service, because lo and behold, within five minutes she had rearranged some of the seats so that LB and LS were next to me and LS was directly in front of us. While I greatly appreciated this, I do have to wonder why I had to be humiliated and reduced to near tears before I was helped.
We finally settled in and discovered there was a second dog on the plane -- whose owners refused to sedate. So, Yippy Dog would start up every ten minutes or so, which would get Basil all riled up and we'd have a good 'ol doggie shout fest until they both calmed down again.
I was relieved when we were all finally in our seats. We were at that moment before takeoff where the plane isn't moving yet, but everyone is strapped in and you're truly not supposed to get up -- or they call the flight deck or tackle you with Air Marshals or something. It was actually nearly silent in the plane, until my dear LB shouted, at the top of his lungs, "I HAVE TO GO POTTTTTYYYYYYY!" This was despite being offered a potty run as soon as we got on the plane (apparently I didn't heed my own words of wisdom; see pearl #3 above). I told him he had to wait until we were in the air. The stewardess ran over and said, "Was that your kid?" I reassured her we were fine. Until the plane started taxiing.
We were just starting to pick up speed when LB yelled, "I'M GONNA TINKLE IN MY PANNNNNTS!!!!" Well, no sir, you are NOT! In less than five minutes I had a pull-up out of my backpack, his seatbelt off, whisked him into the legs-up position, swapped his underpants for the pull-up, and had us both buckled back in. The guys across the aisle were pretty impressed. Of course, he didn't go in his pants after all even with the pull-up on, but you can't take chances with that kind of stuff.
Despite a movie on our personal DVD player and a yummy (not) dinner of an overpriced and overcooked airline cheeseburger, LB did not want to go to sleep. He was overtired and was just all over the place. I spent the whole flight answering "Mama, I want...Mama, why....Mama Mama MAMA" questions until about an hour out of Anchorage. LS had conked out in my lap quietly after her movie, and I finally coaxed LB to lay down and hooked him up to my iPod headphones (I have a veggie tales playlist for such occasions). About thirty minutes before we landed, he FINALLY fell asleep. :-) (BS, by the way, was happy as a clam this whole time -- and eerily self-sufficient for a 7 year old -- in her seat in front of us.)I sat there with my two youngest asleep on my lap and and wondered if it was all worth it. Was I crazy? I looked down at their little angelic faces, both with mile-long lashes curled up on their little cheeks, and thought, "Yep." Life is too short to stay home. We did have a lot of fun, and it sure beat sitting home missing Daddy in the cold and dark. We'll all recover. Either that or we'll flip the college funds over to an HSA for all the therapy they're going to need in twenty years. Either way, right now we're home, so it's all good!
Coming eventually -- pictures and hopefully more pleasant stories from the trip. (I would've said, "Coming soon," but who am I kidding? I'm out cold on the couch most nights by 8:30. Hopefully it will get done while it's still winter here.)
3 comments:
If you ever decide you are tired of working as a doctor, you could easily write a best seller. You have always been such an extremely talented person, Susan. It's just too bad those morons who work for Alaska Airlines didn't realize that they were mistreating such an exceptional person.
Note to self: IF traveling to Alaska via Alaska Airlines be sure to look as if prepared to hunt bear. Got it.
Glad to hear that *most* of your trip was pleasant.
-Sarah K
I love Sarah's comment. You need to forward this somehow to the Airline.
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