Our Flight Home (lots of swear words ahead)

Like most stories, this is better told in person, but here goes:

Clare and I had to change our flight home last week in an effort to avoid White Death in both Cincy and Philly. Instead of flying out in the early afternoon (more our style) we hopped on a flight early Monday morning.

Security was fun. With a wild toddler, stroller, boarding passes out, ID's, backpack stuffed in case we are stuck on the runway for 12 hours and no extra hands, it's my favorite part.

I really like when I have to heave my stroller up on the security belt to get X-rayed with one hand while Clare takes this opportunity to make a break for it under the table. Joyous!

So, after security it's always prudent to hit the family bathroom for a diaper change. I strap Clare in the stroller and park in her in the dead center of the bathroom to prevent her from touching a single.solitary.thing as I dig out the supplies. All the while, Clare loves hearing her own voice echo, so she screams words like "Mooooo" and giggles (which makes me feel like she's calling me a cow). Then it's time for a standing diaper change or a Lysol Air Attack if the changing table is required.

After leaving the family restroom I went to purchase my $9 bottles of water and an apple for her to wait with. I noticed right after I made my purchase that I had exactly 93 missed calls and texts screaming to "CALL CHRIS ASAP".

In a panic I begin dialing his phones 1,000 times in a row (he was blissfully unaware in the shower) until he finally answers to tell me I can not use my debit card because, once again, the number has been stolen, my card canceled and fraudulent charges have posted to our account for $700. Excellent.

I arrived to our gate to watch the huge crowd of stand-by passengers argue for seats and a little part of me died inside as I realized my hopes of the seat next to me being empty are totally gone.

After boarding first (yeah Un-Scheduled Airways for pre-boarding families) it was time for Clare to pass out on my lap for her allergy med induced nap (Don't judge me).

So, crammed into my last seat in the back row of the plane, next to my totally normal seatmate I settled in for a short nap.

(Mental Picture: My feet are jammed into my chin, on top of my backpack that is packed with every single essential item known to man for a 3 day weekend with a toddler, making Clare and I fully stuck into place for the next 1.5 hours)

So, of course 10 minutes into the flight, my eye starts watering. The contact lens has something on it. It's the eye closest to my normal seatmate, so she of course looks at me like I'm crying. She asks me if everything is okay. Yes, yes of course. I explain it's just my contact. Then I rub my eye to adjust the contact and the (profanity) F'er falls out of my eye onto the floor beneath me and the fat kid who is totally, 100% passed out.

Sadly this does not fix the burning eye from Hell so for the next hour and half I proceed in sniffling, while water pours from my now blind eye, making it look like I am hysterical.

Plus, tissues? Totally in the inaccessible bag.

Contact solution/extra contacts? Ditto.

So, Normal Seatmate starts fake sleeping and giving me panicked looks out of the corner of her eye when she thinks I'm not looking. Not that I blame her. But awkward none the less.

After we land, I wait for everyone to de-plane and start shuffling down the aisle towards the front of the plane with the backpack, still asleep heavy toddler and pants that are sagging off me (you know, saggy jeans are HOT).

I get out to where you pick up your gate checked items for my stroller to find that (shocking) the Philly crew didn't open it for me as the Ohio crews always does. So, I grab the stroller (with it's hand made clip to keep it together because Southwest kindly lost the real clip on the flight out) and shuffle my saggy butt towards the gate to situate myself. When I round the corner, I see 6,000 people blocking my exit waiting to board.

Of course, none of the these dumsonsabiitches will move out of my way.

So, to re-iterate:

Make-up down to my chin under my totally blind eyeball, with a nice snot trail from the sniffles.
Saggy pants ready to make this story national news.
A drugged and sleeping toddler.
A ghetto, broken pink umbrella stroller
A backpack that is slightly larger than ski trip to the Alps would require.


So, I rudely push through the crowd until I find a spot semi open and fall to the floor. Clare of course wakes up and is p.i.s.s.e.d. She immediately begins fighting me to run away. I'm fighting her and the ghetto stroller clip to open this MoFo up and strap her into it to get the heck home. My pants? Still attempting to fall down.

This really nice lady offers us help with the stroller and I hang on to a screaming kid on the floor while she and I fight this thing to the death. I strap Clare in, put my backpack on, pull my jeans up and head off to put a new contact lens back in my burning more than 1,000 suns eyeball.

Things are starting to come back together in the family restroom (same set up as above) when I hear an announcement:

If you lost your cellphone in the F-terminal, please return to retrieve it.

I feel in my back pocket.

Awesome.

So, back to the F terminal, where I've already made one scene. I cut in the line of 100 people who are all very angry about their weather related canceled flight to ask for my phone back, only to encounter 95 questions to identify my phone.

First of all, my phone is a total piece. No one, I mean absolutely no one, would try and steal my phone.

Yet, Mr. Way To Concerned About My Phone Rather Than The 100 People In Line played 20 Questions because the telephone number to reach said phone, description including wear marks, make/model and other info was "insufficient".

(Here is where I earned my 3rd drink that evening: I did not punch him in the face).

I pointed to the stroller and said, "See that kid? She's on the Wallpaper. Just give me my damn phone".

He, taking in to account how hot I looked, was underwhelmed by my beauty and decorum, and thus, gave me my phone.

Chris was very surprised to see me when I arrived and was wondering why I looked so "stressed".

The End.