Imagine this.
After having been away from your home and your husband for 10 days worrying over a precious niece in critical condition in a Utah hospital bed, you arise at 3 a.m. to prepare for an early flight home. Three days prior you came down with a killer February flu of some sort and feel like your entire head has been submerged in a fish bowl. Your eyes are bloodshot, you sound like a frog when you try to talk, you can't hear for sinus pressure, and you are more than a bit wuzzy after only a few hours of sleep - which your baby kindly interrupted every hour or so during the night.
Arriving at the airport at 4:00 a.m. with two hours to spare, you wonder if your previous experience racing through security while flight attendants are calling your name, running down the terminal in your socks - belt, bags, and baby in hand as the last call is made isn't preferable to suffering through two hours of arriving early, waiting in an insufferable airport chair from 4:00 a.m. - 6:00 a.m.
After surviving your first flight and a 2 mile walk through the Denver airport to your next terminal, you wonder if the incessant heat you feel radiating from your forehead to the toes in your socks is due to the airport temperature, a fever, sheer exhaustion, or trying to conceal a nursing baby from the gaze of a gate full of unsuspecting middle-aged men.
Standing in line to board the plane, you juggle your overstuffed carryon items, stroller, carseat, suitcase and baby. Then the man behind you in line offers to carry your suitcase. This isn't the first time in your journey that an innocent onlooker has deemed you incapable of managing your own things and offered to help the obvious basket-case of a mother who is traveling on her own. "I am independent. I am!" you tell yourself as you allow him to take your bag. But at this point, you begin to wonder.
The last flight puts you over the edge.
After sweating to death in the cramped quarters of the airplane potty with a baby on your lap, and a narrow escape of the baby hitting the call button just when you are about to flush, you take your seat next to a disinterested looking man with a mustache. An hour passes with no verbal exchange between you and the man, and the plane has not yet moved one inch closer to the runway. The baby decides he'd like to nestle up for a little snack before dozing off, and you try to casually drape your jacket over your shoulder, pretending to use it as a blanket for the baby. You are once again sweating, and desperately hope to avoid flashing the man next to you who appears to be trying to take a nap. The baby zonks off, two hours of dead weight on your lap, and try as you might you can not get your sorry self to fall asleep for one minute of the 3 1/2 hours you are on the plane.
The baby wakes, drinks come, and still no exchange from the man with the mustache. Just as well, you think. Your toad-like voice could barely croak out anything decipherable anyway. Out of pity, the man finally offers to open your pop can, as this task requires two hands - something you do not have. For the remainder of the flight you scavenge bits of reusable tissue to stop the slimy mucus from draining down your face, while trying to save cups of ice and a can of apple juice from flying off the tray due to the flailing appendages of your 9-month old. The lady in front of you abruptly puts her chair back into the 'upright position' to stop your baby from using the tray as a percussive device.
The pilot announces you will be landing soon, and you sigh at the thought of this journey finally coming to an end. All at once, a searing pain stabs you all across your forehead, pierces your ears, and throbs at the base of your scull. You have heard it can be painful to fly with a cold, but that is surely an understatement compared to the agony you now begin to suffer. You consider tossing the baby over to the indifferent man beside you and screaming aloud in pain! Instead you put your one free hand to your head, close your eyes, and wonder when it your head is going to explode from the pressure. Just when you think you can stand it no longer, the plane descends and the pressure is relieved.
Reeling from lack of sleep, your near death experience with air pressure and a sinus infection, and what you think might be a fever but seems more like the hot flashes of woman going through menopause, you want desperately to get off that plane. While normally you are content to wait it out, letting people pass until the plane clears, you now strap your overweight backpack to your back, sling your ridiculous knitting bag (as if you would have had any time to knit!) over your shoulders, pop the baby up on your hip and wedge your way through the swarm of people standing ready for the airplane doors to be open. You want nothing more than to be off that plane!
Tears threaten as you are told your 'gate checked bag' cannot be picked up at the gate, but can be found on the bottom floor of the scummy Chicago airport at baggage claim 11. Strolling through the vast airport wondering how in the heck you will find the right baggage claim, you make another blasted potty stop - cramming yourself, the stroller, and all of your belongings into the stall, so as to not leave your items 'unattended.' Later on, wandering about in a secluded basement area of the Chicago airport, you manage to come across a flight attendant who you ask for additional directions. As you finally approach the flippin' baggage claim, your phone starts beeping and you realize - it is dead.
Defeated, you despondently rummage through your black hole of a backpack looking for a phone charger. At this point you have resigned yourself to become a sure victim of whatever vermin airport predators that might be lingering about. The first outlet you try for your phone doesn't work. You then cart all of your belongings off to find another outlet and finally reach your husband on the line. Just as you reach him, you notice the bags coming in from your flight. Leery of the kind of people that may be rummaging about in the downtown Chicago baggage claim, you ditch the call with your husband and hurry over to lug your bag off of the belt.
Crossing two lanes of traffic with your entourage of stroller and roller bag, what may as well have been a knight on a white horse pulls up to the curb. On the point of your collapse, he pulls you under his wing and produces 12 red roses from the trunk of the car. The tears you have been fighting off for the entire pilgrimage from the gate to the baggage claim now stream out of your eyes. You finally gasp midst your shudders, "I am at the end of my rope! Thank you." The knight swiftly secures the baby in the backseat of the car, whisks all of your blasted belongings into the trunk, and delivers you securely to your final resting place.
Upon arrival, you are confronted with a scene so wonderous your blood-shot eyes can scarcely behold.
Twenty-six hearts line the staircase banister in your home, plump with admiring adjectives all about you for every letter of the alphabet. The aroma of home-baked lasagna, breadsticks, and tilapia from your husband's own Italian restaurant waft their way into your stuffed-up nose. White lights line the walls of your room, and you fall into your bed for a nap and stare in bewilderment at the hearts dangling from the ceiling fan overhead. The wonder of this welcome home will go down in history as the most perfect timing for an unsuspecting male to try his hand at creativity.
Thank you Chad!
Note: Chad threatened to kill me if I let on to anyone about this whole welcome home/valentine episode. And now I am posting it on my blog. But seeing as this dose of creativity is the kind of thing a wife is likely to experience only once in her life, I figured it was worth documenting :-)
