FIASCO - Part 2

The wake-up call came promptly at 6:00. It had been a pretty good night. It wasn't ideal but I kind of enjoyed the sweetness of sharing a bed with my two babies (after Marty woke up to nurse.) Silly me, I thought that would be plenty of time to make it down to the lobby to catch the 6:30 shuttle. It was tight. I forgot that I had used a luggage cart to get all our gear up to the room so I had to make an extra trip in the elevator for that. Mom helped gather our things and get Max's shoes on. The shuttle still wasn't there when we finally made it downstairs, but a crowd was gathering. Max helped himself to a complimentary apple and quietly sat eating that while we waited for the bus. I couldn't find Marty's cute little hat in the diaper bag so Mom went back up to look for it. Not there. Of course not, because I found it in my bag later. When the shuttle arrived, all the other people swarmed it, loading all their stuff on. I was the last one to load my stuff and the man said he couldn't fit it in the cargo area. The look I gave him assured him that it would fit. I did have to take one, or maybe even both carseats onto the bus with me. (I had two carseats because I had bought one in Calgary. Marty needed to upgrade so I had Sears send it there, as I needed it for driving around Calgary. Would have worked great if I didn't have to stop my trip and drag it around with the rest of my luggage.)

We arrived at the airport with not very much time to get to the gate by 7:15. I already had some sort of boarding pass so I headed straight for security. The man greeted me and reminded me that I needed to check my luggage. Duh. So I rushed back to where you have to put the luggage on the conveyer belt and the man stopped me in time before I put it on with NO TAGS! I still had to do the whole check in thing. On any other day I would have remembered these minor but very important details. I think that was when I cursed. Quietly. The nice man in front of me wasn't in a hurry so he agreed to let me ahead of him. The lady told me that my gate had been changed. I managed to snag a ride on one of those courtey cart things. He whisked me there. Oddly, on the way to my gate, I passed a guy from our church. As I sailed passed he said hello and I said something about hoping to get home soon. He kind of looked at me funny. I got to that gate and the cart man drove away. The lady at the gate looked at my card and told me I was at the wrong gate! She said I needed to go back to the original gate that was printed on my card. The driver man was long gone so she directed me to another cart where someone else would take me to the right place. It was a bit of a hike, made much more complicated with my wee ones, the car seat, and my emotional state. I waited on the cart while chatting with a lady from Rupert who was flying from Vancouver to Terrace (1.5 hours from Rupert). I took a peek to see if the man was coming and saw that he was making a phone call. Great. He saw me. I went back to the cart and worried a little bit more. Still feeling frantic, I took one more look at the man and asked if he would be able to give me a ride as I was on standby for a flight about to commence boarding. He told me to sit down and be patient. *GASP!* Oh, I sat down. And cried. The sweet lady comforted me. The man noticed and came right over, asking what the trouble was. I couldn't say a word without going into "the ugly cry" so she told him, "She's just a little stressed right now and really needs to get on that airplane." His compassion seemed to surface and he took me right over. Oh look, there's the man I had whizzed past 10 minutes ago. And there's his family. And there's the family Dr. I had seen in ER with my boys TWICE in two weeks. Oh look, they're all from Rupert and are going home. The man told me that there wasn't even an agent there yet (of course there wasn't, Thank you very little, Air Canada). And so off the cart we came like a herd of turtles and settled in for more waiting. The lady from our church listened to my sad little story as I dried my tears and caught my breath. The agent finally arrived and I promptly presented myself at the counter to tell him my situation. Before I got very far he interrupted and said "I haven't even signed onto the computer yet Miss, please wait a few moments." THE NERVE! So I waited some more. While I waited, I watched another lady go up to the counter and explain that her two children were on standby for the flight and would they be able to make it on? HE STARTED TO LOOK IT UP ON THE COMPUTER! The rotten stinky NERVE! This time I marched up to remind him I WAS THERE FIRST and I so dearly wanted to get home that day. He took a look at my cards and casually pointed out to me that I had assigned seats for the flight and I was not, in fact, on standby. Good grief. I hadn't even bothered looking at my ticket because everyone kept telling me I was on standby. The family from our church helped me and the boys down the big flight of stairs and onto the plane. Then somebody held Marty, or I just tried to corral him while I struggled to secure Max's carseat into his airplane seat. I got it in, got him settled, sat me-self down and started wishing the 2 hour flight was over already.

Sounds like the end of the story right? Oh, no. The flight attendant came along and wanted to look for the Canada Transportation Safety Board sticker on Max's carseat. I assured her that it met said standards. Ah, but she needed to see the sticker. I waited in the aisle with Marty while she tried to find the sticker. Couldn't find it. Again, I tried to tell her it was okay and WHY was this the first of my four flights that someone actually decided to check? Not good enough. Had to take Max out of the seat, unbuckle it and tip it over so she could see with her very own eyes. I know she was just doing her job but COME ON LADY! Once she was satisfied, she held Marty while I wrangled the seat and Max back into their proper places. She was really nice to me the rest of the flight. Gave me extra cookies. (Which by the way are my new favourites ... "Bran Crunch" by Peak Freans. So good.)

We arrived to our funny little airport. (See the animation of arriving here ... refresh the page if you miss it the first time.) I knew I didn't want to deal with kids and luggage yet again, so I had driven our truck over on the ferry and parked it at the airport for a week. Free. Had to pay 5 big whoppers for the ferry ride though. The parking is quite a ways away from the terminal so I took the boys out there through the rain to move the truck closer to the terminal. I secured them in their carseats and waited to collect my things FOR THE LAST TIME. (I put Marty back into his infant seat which was still installed in the truck. Max went in his carseat that I had with me on the plane). The luggage finally moved from the plane so I gathered that and off we drove to wait for the ferry.

Sounds like the end of the story right? Oh, baby, no.

I think I'll let you wait for part three ... Arriving Home. But it wasn't really home, it was back to that basement suite we were camping out in.