Excess baggage of an emotional hostage

Late last night I drove Ariella and Gilad to the airport and sent them off to spend a couple of weeks at the family compound in Connecticut (I've always wanted to use that Kennedy-esque expression about my parent's beach house).

From the moment Shabbat ended Zahava sat in the living room looking at the clock and dabbing discretely at her eyes.  The longest stretch of time she has ever spent away from any of our kids in their entire lives is, maybe, 36 hours!  By comparison, 13 days was a yawning eternity that was threatening to pop all of her mommy-fuses at once.

For his part, our two-and-a-half year old kept climbing into Zahava's lap, grabbing her face between his pudgy hands and saying, “It’s okay Ima, don’t cry!” and  “You 'k Ima? Give Yonah kiss!"  He seemed honestly baffled when this magic trick which had always worked on him, only made Zahava cry harder.

Each time I glimpsed a break in the tear storm and tried to assure her that it was really no big deal for kids this age to fly solo, she started muttering insane stuff about how they need to wear closed backed shoes (instead of their Naot clogs) in case (G-d forbid, blee ayin harah, tfu tfu tfu, etc.) the plane crashed. 

I honestly don't know where she picked up this morbid little piece of travel trivia, but by the time we were bringing the kid's suitcases down to the living room, she seemed to be teetering on the edge of believing that it was only closed-backed shoes on the feet of our children that would keep the passenger jet in the air until it reached its destination.

I finally had to dust of my firm 'father knows best' voice and tell Zahava that it was a night flight and it was important that the kids be able to easily slip their shoes on and off so they might have a chance of sleeping. 

Zahava wasn't happy that I'd over-ruled what she considered to be one the cornerstone of physics and aerodynamic theory... but to her credit she sat silently and only sobbed a little as the kids exchanged their sneakers for their clogs.

Once we waved a teary goodbye to Zahava and Yonah and were heading towards the airport, my own daddy-fuses began to slowly pop one at a time.  As I tried to calmly go over all the important stuff I'd learned as a seasoned traveler, I could hear my voice getting higher and more strained.  What the hell was I thinking?!... these kids weren't nearly old enough to fly halfway around the world by themselves!

By the time we pulled into the airport I was starting to lose it. 

I missed the turn-off for the police station the first two times around the airport... and when Ariella asked me why we seemed to be going around in circles I was perhaps a little more abrupt with her than I should have been.  I had no choice but to stop off at the police station in order to check my gun or I wouldn't be able to go into the terminal with them... so each time I missed the turn off it shaved another 10 minutes off our already dwindling good-bye time together inside the airport.

Once we were in the terminal and had navigated the thorough Israeli security screening, we were sent to a nearby ticket window to magically turn the kid's e-tickets into real live paper boarding passes. 

Only we were sent to the wrong window.  Apparently unaccompanied minors have their very own ticketing window somewhere in Ben Gurion International Airport... and its location is one of the more closely guarded national secrets. 

We spent a full twenty minutes being sent on wild goose chases until a hapless security official made the mistake of responding to my visible skepticism at his directions with the dreaded phrase 'Smoch Alai' (trust me).  Right there and then I suddenly understood why they don't allow guns inside the terminal.

Instead of doing anything rash, I calmly told him that I was not going anywhere without him.  He could either personally escort us to this elusive 'unaccompanied minor window'... or he would be having three house-guests for the foreseeable future.

He decided to take us there.

Once we were at the desired window a new issue arose.  Apparently during one of our many trips through security and the pre-check-in screening we had managed to get a particular colored sticker stuck on the kids' Israeli passports instead of on their American passports.  This discrepancy was too much for the woman at the unaccompanied minors window to process, and with a look of deep sadness she sent us off in search of additional stickers.

The problem with these stickers is that they are given out by a roving band of airport employees who don't stay in any one place for more than 30 seconds.  I suppose this strolling, decentralized approach to sticker distribution is supposed to prevent bottlenecks and crowds... but it also makes it impossible to retrace your steps if the wheels happen to fall off any part of the check-in process.

As luck would have it I spotted the security guy we had previously held hostage and forced him to locate someone to dispense the required stickers.

Back at the unaccompanied minors window I was non-plussed to see an enormous family with a metric ton of luggage trying to check in.  It was immediately clear that the parents were flying with the kids (WTF?)... and equally clear that the woman behind the counter - the only person in the airport... perhaps in the known world... who could process unaccompanied minors - was going to take care of them.

More fuses started tripping... pop, pop, pop!

After 20 minutes of watching the runny-nosed, quarrelsome poster children for birth control and their plodding, obese parents search casually through endless bags and suitcases for passports and tickets (only occasionally finding single examples of one or the other), I got the sudden idea that perhaps I was witnessing some kind of scavenger hunt... something they considered all part of the vacation fun.

(Pop, pop, pop, pop!)

Before I actually lost my mind I stepped up to the woman behind the counter and suggested that since a full twenty five minutes had now passed and this family didn't seem quite ready to be processed... perhaps she could suggest they step to the side and let other people (US!) check in. 

To her credit, the ticket agent's bovine eyes looked only mildly surprised by my helpful suggestion.  I think if I had created cold fusion in her coffee cup or pulled a howler monkey out of my butt, her expression would have been only slightly less composed.

Once the super-sized Waltons and their endless sea of luggage had been herded off to the side, I handed the agent the kid's e-tickets again and she dutifully started clacking furiously away at her computer. 

There seems to be some special code that airline personnel use when entering data that requires 20 or 30 keystrokes for each corresponding letter in the Latin alphabet.  In any event, it was another 5 minutes before she looked up from the keyboard concerto she was performing with a deeply worried expression on her face.  This didn't appear to be good news (and my fuses kept on pop, pop, popping!).

"Sir", she began, "Are you aware that there is a $50 fee for minors traveling without an adult?" 

I breathed a sigh of relief.  Is that all?  Of course I knew that! 

Looking at her knitted brow and quivering jowls I thought the airline had somehow lost the kid's reservations... and here she was frowning at her computer screen because perhaps this red faced, sweating father might not want to pay the additional fee for his children to fly alone.

Moron!  (pop, pop, popopopop!)

I quickly paid the $50 bucks and looked at my watch with rising panic as I realized there was only about 40 minutes until the scheduled departure time.  But looking at the sea of people who had yet to check in for the flight, I forced myself not to worry about them missing the flight.  However, my unease returned when the agent handed me the receipt for the $50 dollar fee.  I was shocked to see in bold letters across the top of the printed page, the words:

"Receipt for Excess Baggage Fee"

Excess Baggage!  (pop,pop,popopopopopop!)

I must have lost my mind for a moment because when I could again focus on what she was saying I heard her explaining that all additional fees were accounted for with this standard receipt form, and of course they didn't consider the kids to be baggage... excess or otherwise.

We finished the check-in process without any further elevation in my blood pressure and the kids were given clear plastic pouches containing their boarding passes and passports to wear around their necks.  We were then directed to a roped off area where several other parents were standing with kids (who also had their boarding passes and passports in clear plastic pouches suspended around their necks).

Now I'm a veteran traveler and have logged roughly a bazillion miles on a wide range of fixed and rotary winged commuter (and also military) aircraft.  Flying is fun.  Flying is convenient.  Flying is safe.

So why is it that as I waited there in the roped-off area for a complete stranger to come escort my two pre-teen kids into the security area of the terminal, that I suddenly got a mental image of my babies being shoved into an un-airworthy steel tube where every one of it's thousands of aging parts were manufactured by the lowest bidder? *

When a flight attendant finally came to gather up her young charges, we waited as one by one she introduced herself to the kids and checked their documents.

When she got to Ariella and Gilad she seemed to be looking for something ... and not finding it.  After a few minutes of flipping through their passports and turning their boarding passes over and over in her hand, she looked up at me and asked, "Where are their stickers?"

Imagine the sound of the lead singer's microphone at a rock concert... submerged in a bowl full of milk and Rice Crispies.

POP! 

All my remaining fuses popped at once.  That vapid idiot at the unaccompanied minor check-in counter had actually peeled off the stickers I had gone to so much trouble to acquire.  I tried to imagine what would posses her to do this, but all I heard in my ears was the frying bacon sound of wires short circuiting.

This blameless flight attendant must have looked into my eyes and seen the beast about to emerge, because the she quickly added, "Sir, I don't think it will be a problem... really".

I tried to get her to quantify the phrase "I don't think..." in terms of mathematical probability that she wouldn't be able to get my kids on the flight, but she quickly back-tracked... removed the offending phrase from her sentence... and assured me "It won't be a problem...Trust me!".

I must have lost consciousness because I have only the vaguest recollection of hugging the kids and giving them kisses before watching them disappear into the mysterious land beyond the security gate.  The drive home was accomplished on auto-pilot.

The kids are in the air right now and I should really be asleep.  It's almost 4:00AM, and I'm wide awake... an emotional hostage to a couple of kids who are probably having the time of their lives right now, conning flight attendants out of playing cards and plastic pilot's wings. 

They are probably watching a movie or eating the brownies and rugalach we stuffed into their carry-on bags.  I can even see them in my mind's eye effortlessly making friends and exchanging email addresses with other kids on the flight.   So why is it that I keep picturing myself changing their diapers?

Oh yeah, I'm gonna be a lot of fun to be around when they go into the army.

* Yes dork boys and girls, I know this phrase is a shameless lift from an offhand comment attributed to several American astronauts back in the 60s.  Get over it.