Jet Lagged!

Laptops are amazing. Wireless is even more amazing. The user has to be amazing,too. I don't know what made me think I could buy a netbook, ask my savvy nephew, Jason, to program it and teach me how to use it all in one afternoon. Brion, who has been doing the work on my house and is now cat-sitting, managed to complete enough of the process so I can follow through. But it hasn't been easy. It takes me an hour to do what anyone else manages in minutes. Just figuring out how to interface with the hotel's system and switching from German to English drove me batsh.t. But I'm here, and for the moment, at least, I'm connected.
(Nobody'd better tell me how simple it really is or I'm liable to fling something at them through cyberspace- and it won't be a Swiss chocolate bar!)

Can you tell I'm a wee bit spacey? I am still so jet-lagged I'm not sure what day it is. In fact, I can barely keep my eyes open. But I have to tell you about the trip from NY to Switzerland, and if I can stay awake long enough, maybe I'll make it to Munich, which is where I am now.

Brion drove Boyo and me to JFK. We were so early, I checked in and then stood outside smoking for an hour- with a wailing, flailing Tonkinese carrying on as if he were being led to slaughter. I heard "Is that a cat?" from arriving and departing passengers so many times I was running out of facetious answers. My favorite was "No, it's a Banshee; I'm taking him back to Ireland."

I finally went in and got a coffee, then tried to relax in the handicapped waiting area. Air Berlin is well hidden at the back of the American Airlines terminal, but the wheelchairs are stacked right next to the entrance to all the gates. Boyo's vocals were lost in the uproar, so nobody noticed him until we got to Security.

My escort was a pleasant African woman named Camille, now living in the Bronx with her husband and twenty-year-old son. She helped me sort all my electronics into bins and started to put Boyo's carrier on the belt. I said "No, wait! That's my cat! He gets handed through."

I truly wasn't looking for trouble, but I know the routine. The Security guy said "Take him out of the bag." And I said "No" again, adding "The cat gets walked through."

I was getting a little agitated, with good reason. My bag, purse, Nikon with its new $771.00 lens and expensive ultra-memory card, passport, cruise ticket, cash, credit cards, netbook, translator et.al. were on the other side of the security checkin. I was stuck outside the gate with a screaming somersaulting cat carrier and a flabbergasted security agent, and I hadn't had a cigarette in an hour. I yelled "Hey! All my stuff is over there..." and Camille yelled back "It's okay, I've got it!" while the guard was also yelling "Take the cat out of the bag!" and I shouted "NO!" You can't imagine the ruckus. (Well, if you've ever flown with a upset cat and run into security guards who behave like Gestapo, maybe you can.) The SG finally decided he needed help and snapped "I'll get a supervisor." "Please do!" I replied. Since it took the supervisor about thirty seconds to get there, I figured he'd heard the clamor and was already on his way. As soon as I saw him, I started talking- staccato! "I can't take him out of the bag unless you want to chase him all over the airport- he's already berserk. We're surrounded by screaming kids, crazed parents, and bedlam. Do you have a little room we can go to where I can take him out safely?" "Right over there," he said, pointing with his baton. Then he waited while I went through the scanner, and another guard did a full electronic body scan- including the bottoms of my feet! Did they think I was using the cat as a distraction for smuggling something on my person? I almost felt as if I should be sorry to disappoint them. NOT!

The supervisor and two other security guards (one female) followed me and Boyo to the octagonal portable room. As soon as the door closed, I started unzipping the carrier and Boyo began frantically clambering through the gap. I managed to hang onto him while the Super scanned the carrier inside and out. The other guards were standing well back. What did they think I was going to haul out of there, an exploding python? A pissed off cat is bad enough! Especially one who, now that he's out of that hateful carrier, is damned well going to use every claw on all four feet plus eight pounds of sinuous muscle, to avoid going back in. Luckily, the supervisor was nice enough to help me get Boyo back in the bag. I thanked him profusely. Camille and I then had an uneventful trek down to the gate. She thought it was quite funny that I'd had a "private" security check. It was only funny for me in retrospect.

The plane was one of those huge wide-bodies: two seats on either side and six seats across the center. With only two hundred forty-nine passengers aboard, the double seats becaame "singles" for those of us flying alone. Unfortunately, I couldn't put Boyo in the empty seat. He'd already attracted enough attention. At least Air Berlin doesn't charge by the number of feet for their four-legged passengers. Boyo's fare was only $58.00. Domestic airlines could take a lesson from the International carriers. What's fair is fair.

I can't say enough good things about the flight attendants, either. I no sooner had Boyo settled, than our flight attendant came over to chat for a moment and ask if the cat would like some water. Turned out she's an animal person, of course- she has a little dog :) I declined the water, but asked if I could take Boyo to the restroom to clean up his trashed carrier, since the head was off the opposite aisle, through the galley. She even ran ahead of me to drop the baby changing table over the commode!

Boyo had no trouble ripping open the two cartons of cigarettes I'd duct-taped upright at one end of the carrier to stabilize it. I managed to stuff all the loose packets into my bag. In all the years I've travelled with cats, I've never seen such destruction, or heard such protests. He never stopped. After dinner, I managed to doze for about four hours, but I could hear him in my sleep. He carried on throughout the seven hour flight to Dusseldorf. He ranted as we were wheeled onto the hydraulic deck, dropped to the asphalt, and rolled through the back alleys of the airport to German Customs and through Security. He lamented until we got to the handicapped ladies room. I'd asked my escort for a detour, to clean out his carrier. He'd had an accident around mid-flight, since I couldn't get him to the bathroom for a potty break, and the carrier reeked.The German security people didn't even want to get near us! (I wonder if this would have gotten us through JFK?)

At least I could let him out of the carrier to stretch his legs instead of his lungs for a few minutes. Too late for a litter pan. What a mess. I'd been pushing bits of chicken into the carrier, and he hadn't touched it. I disposed of the entire contents of the carrier, cleaned up the bag with soap and water, popped the prancing cat back inside before he realized we weren't "there yet", and went once more into the fray. Need I say that Boyo took up where he'd left off moments before?

Now please, understand that I was exhausted, hurting beyond Vicodin, and I'd had it with this cat.The stink had dissipated, but he was still singing like a really, really bad tenor. Much as I love him, I was at the end of my tether.So when we got to the door of the plane and I stepped inside and the Captain said "You can't bring the cat on board in that bag," I just looked at him, eyeball to eyeball, and said "Yes. I. Can." He said "No.You.Can't." Another minute and we'd have sounded like Ethel Merman and Howard Keel.Instead, I said "Why not?" He replied "The cat has to be in a waterproof box."

Well, shut my mouth and call me Madam, but if the cat has to be in a waterproof box, what does that mean for the human passengers if we go down in the ocean? Can we have waterproof boxes, too? Do they give us the size used for Great Danes? The cat will float in his waterproof box, but the passengers have to swim among the sharks hanging on to slippery plastic cushions? It just never occurred to me that he meant a carrier that wouldn't leak, and we were actually suffering a German/English language barrier. I was just too far gone. So I informed him that the cat had flown on Air Berlin from New York to Dusseldorf in the carrier, that it was an acceptable mode of transportation for the cat, and I wasn't putting him in a "box." Period.

While the flight attendants all rolled their eyes and looked sheepish, Captain "Napoleon" decided to pass the buck. The flight Agent was perfectly reasonable: what the Captain says goes. The airline makes the rules, but the Captain gets to change them. If the Captain says the carrier is unacceptable, it's unacceptable. I would need to put the cat in a box. "No," I said. "Nuh-uh." End of discussion. At which point- you guessed it- Captain "Napoleon" called for the Supervisor.

By now, I'd gotten to my seat and stowed Boyo where he belonged. Enter the Supervisor. The cat has to go in a box. No he doesn't. He does. Nope. And I totally lost it. "I don't care what Captain "Napoleon" says. This is a regulation carrier, What are you going to do, throw me off the plane? I promise you, Air Berlin isn't going to like being sued. And I'll sue you, the captain, and that's that!" I really hope I didn't call the captain what I was thinking out loud, but I was seeing red. I sat down and fastened my seat belt. The supervisor walked away. The entire human population on the plane, passengers and crew, waited with bated breath for the next act.

It didn't take long. The fair-haired young male attendant tiptoed to my seat. Very quietly, he said "Would you please put the cat in this box?" I looked at his pleading eyes and at the little black plastic mesh carrier he held out to me, that someone had kindly put a little red blankie in the bottom. It was the carrier every cat, small dog and ferret owner knows to avoid, because it has a double zipper top that doesn't close all the way, and a small snap closure that pops open at the slightest pressure. But I could see the desperation on the guy's face, so I smiled and said "sure!" Then, of course, I had to hold the boxed cat on my lap for the entire flight, since I had to clutch the gap closed. The flight attendant saw the problem, gave me a nod, a sweet smile and a wave of his hand; the door closed; and we were underway at last.

Boyo was no happier, but everyone else was thrilled with the denouement. We landed in Zurich less than an hour later.