Thursday, December 13 and Friday, December 14 – Home:

            I just knew I’d have a story…

            Of course, we didn’t sleep very well the night before we left…too much excitement…hoping we would wake up and not oversleep (which never happens because you are up all night thinking about that very event), the cat knew something was up and was not happy because she knew whatever it was, she was not going to like it, and we were just thinking about too many things in general.

            Anyway, at 5:00 a.m., we decided to get up.  We had set the alarm clock on the cell phone for 5:30 and this would be a good way to see if it actually went off, which it did, scaring us as we initially thought the ringing signaled that the taxi driver was calling to tell us he couldn’t make it for one reason or another!

            So the first thing I do every morning is (on demand) feed the cat.  This morning, however, I had to mash up the little pill in her food that would hopefully make her enjoy the day (ha ha).  So I do this – clean out her dish, mash the pill into a nice helping of food, just sure that she is going to be ecstatic that she is getting this extra helping, and I set it down in front of her, and she looks up at me with this scornful look in her eyes that says, “You really don’t expect me to eat that, do you?”  And with that, she sauntered off to who knows where.  Yikes!  Oh well…I guess she just wanted to be acutely aware of all the goings on today!

            So as we were preparing to get ready, and I was in the head brushing my teeth (just what you all wanted to know, right?), I hear kitty banging on the door (yes, she does do that).  So I let her in and she jumps up on the counter, and I get it…she wants a drink of water out of the faucet.  This persnickety cat likes to drink directly from a running faucet instead of lapping water in a dish.  So I let her have her drink, and lo and behold, she goes and eats everything in sight in both cat food dishes!  Thank Heaven!!  Here’s hoping the little blue pill does its job and knocks her out!  First disaster averted!

            On to the second potential disaster.

            First off, I have to offer one of my personal opinions about men – my husband included.  I don’t know what it is about them, but they like to push the time envelope.  The taxi driver is coming to pick us up at 6:50 a.m., and at 6:30 Bob is still puttering around, and then he tells me he has to check the engine room one more time.  I am saying, “You know, we have to get all this luggage out to the parking lot, and the cat, and we should be out there a few minutes early, yada, yada, yada, and Bob is saying, “Yeah, yeah, we have plenty of time.”  This is a man’s standard response to everything.  I swear, our plane is supposed to leave at 10:30, and if it was 10:00, Bob would still say, “Oh we have plenty of time.”  Well, what can I say – I like to be a little early (for precautionary purposes)…just in case something happens on the way to the airport!!!

            So, we get all our stuff out to the parking lot, and guess what, the taxi driver has been waiting for us since 6:30 a.m.  I start to be impressed.  However, when we get in the car (which I think was Mercury Marquis) and I start to look around, I realize it is similar to the car we borrowed way back in Deltaville.  The inside is semi-falling apart, the passenger side window doesn’t work, so he has to open my window so Bob gets some air, the seats don’t work – do I need to go on.  Oh well, we are on our way home.

            Now I am sitting in the back seat with the cat so I don’t have a great view of everything, but I figure that’s probably not a bad thing; and as we start to pull out of the parking lot, I hear from both men in the front seat, “Wow, I never noticed that earlier,” “I wonder what that could be,” “I hope this isn’t a problem.”  So I finally yell, “WHAT’S THE MATTER!”  And they turn around and tell me the engine is overheating.  Do you see why I like to leave early sometimes?

            Yep, I realize that something that resembles smoke is coming out from under the hood of the car…Yikes!  So now the first order of the trip is to find a gas station where the guy can get some water to put in the radiator.  I am just shaking my head.    So that’s where we head – fortunately, there is a gas station on the way to the airport, and all the while he is apologizing, and saying how embarrassed he is etc., etc., etc.

            The water seems to fix the problem, and we actually get to the airport in about 45 minutes (everybody told us that it would take over an hour), and the guy is pretty talkative the whole way.  Actually, he had such a “gift of gab”, he should have been a bartender – he probably would have made a lot more money.  He was born on Long Island, so he and Bob had lots of stories and reminisces to talk about, and he was a wealth of interesting information about Florida in general.

            So here we are at the airport by 7:30 a.m. and the plane doesn’t leave until 10:30.  Bob is looking at me like, “we could have slept another hour.”  I sleepily agree.  Now we just have to get through ticketing and security.

            Ticketing is no problem – not too many people in line, and there were a lot of customer service people behind the counter.  I did have one lady and her little girl come up to me and want to know about the little kitty, and was she “humming”  as they tried to peer into the cat carrier.  Humming…???  I said do you mean “purring”, and she said, “No, humming.”  I replied that, “No, I don’t think she is humming – she is probably not too happy right now.”  Fortunately, we checked our bags and then headed off to security…oh dear…

            Now, before I left on this voyage, I took the cat to the vet as I probably related in an earlier blog.  And the vet told me, “Under no circumstances take that cat out of the carrier or even open the cat carrier!!”  And I plan to follow her admonition to the letter.   So we get up to where you have to completely undress in front of everybody (oh no…just take off stuff that goes beep), and one of the nice security guards says to me that I will have to take Lucy out of the cat carrier so the cat carrier can go through the scanner.   So I explain as nicely and cooperatively as I can that I was advised not to take her out of the carrier, and that I had been told when I bought the ticket that I could walk through the people scanner with the cat carrier.  So he tells me that when I get ready to go through, they will take me, but then I will be escorted to a safe room where they can examine me and the cat.  Yikes!  I am now thinking I am glad we got to the airport early, and I am not sleepy anymore.

            So we get up to the scanner, and get ready to go through, and a nice lady with a gun says to me, “You have to take the cat out of the carrier.”  I decide rather quickly that it wouldn’t be a good idea to argue with her, so I think I am just going to hold on to Lucy for dear life and get her back in the carrier as soon as possible.  So I grab the scruff of her neck and lift her out, and hold on to her for all I am worth, but it was ok, because she was a limp noodle.  She had been convinced early on that she was about to be shot by the nice lady with the gun, and that everything her mother had told her about people was coming true and she was just going to give up.  So we walk through the scanner and there were no beeping or flashing lights, and I think, “phew” when another security guard looks at me, and I swear – I SWEAR - he says to me, “Is that a panther?” I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!! I said, “No, this is a housecat.”  But it was too late, another security guard heard that comment, and then another, so I am now surrounded by three security guards, all saying, “is that a panther??”  I am starting to wonder just how competent these people really are.  So another nice security guard lady, gets wide-eyed because she is in actuality terrified of cats (even a 10 pound limp housecat) and actually backs away.  Everybody within earshot is now looking at us like we have tried to smuggle some feline contraband into the country, and even if Lucy did get loose, she would have just lain prostrate on the floor begging to be shot and put out of her misery.  So now both Bob and I have to move over to a less crowded area and have both our hands swiped with some weird type of cloth thing.  I have no idea what purpose this served, and I am too tired to look it up on the internet, and I wasn’t about to ask the bevy of security guards surrounding us, but it must have had something to do with determining if we actually were handling a panther or a meek little housecat.  I suppose they finally determined that Lucy was just a housecat and not an illegal substance, and I was allowed to put her back in the carrier and continue on to our gate. 

            Just remember all this when you don’t want to leave early for the airport!

            Honestly, after that hullabaloo, Bob and I were just scratching our heads in between laughter and disbelief that Lucy could be mistaken for a panther (even a baby panther).  I mean, seriously, what level of education do you need to know the difference especially if you are supposed to be a security guard.  Ok I guess they are just doing their job, and yes, they probably did need to “see” the cat, but for three people to say, “is that a panther??”  I’m sure this was the highlight of their day, but C’mon people…

            Fortunately, after that, all went smoothly.  Lucy was completely quiet, even on the plane where I had to stuff her under the seat in front of me.  My daughter picked us up at the airport, and I was able to open the carrier and pet her, and we got home without any further incidents.  When I opened the cat carrier to let her out, she scampered out, recognized at once where she was, and seemed to be ecstatically happy.  We were all exhausted, and hit the sack early and slept well.

            So, this is Friday morning.  We are sitting here at the breakfast table and glad to be home (at least for the next month).  Lucy is sitting on the windowsill next to us, intently looking out the window, pretending she is a panther and hunting for birds looking for their breakfast on the lawn.  Bob and I are watching the gray squirrels scamper up and down the trees playfully chasing each other.   It’s a bright, chilly morning and a whitish frost covers the yard.  Among many things on my “to do” list, I am going to do some Christmas decorating today.

 Happy Holidays everyone!