gee mom, you swore a lot.

Everyone needs a good airport story. You know - to whip out at cocktail parties and other social occasions where one needs good stories.

So kids and I loaded up into the huge taxi van leo arranged for us at 3:00 am and headed to the airport.

We arrive in plenty of time for our flight.
Check the departure board, find our ticket counter.

There are 3 lines - "Executive" "drop off" and "Economy Class"

Well, I know I am not executive, not sure what drop off means, so we head to the back of the longest line- - the economy folks.

P says - "mom, the drop off line is shorter - lets go there"

me - "no, I am not sure what that means . . ."

P - "but mom, everyone else is just going in that line"

me - "P, we are American. If nothing else, we stand in the proper line"

P keeps nagging. I hold out. I will set a good example for the kids.

SO we stand in line - and stand and stand.

OK - so ends up 1 last person in executive line, 2 people in drop off, and I am the last of 3 people in the economy.

Ticket Lady for executive finishes and waves the second person in the drop off line to come over.

Bless him, the guy says "take the woman with the kids ahead of me" Ticket Landy says - I kid you not - "I dont want the woman with the kids - come over and I will check you in". I frown at her wondering if I understood correct. The man looks at her and says in a curt way "I am alone, I have no bags to check - the flight leaves in 40 minutes - take the woman with the kids!". She rolls her eyes, looks at me, and does the russian look and hand wave. You know, cocks her head to the side, raises an eyebrow expectantly, and does a little wave with her hand like "what the hell are you doing over there, get over here!"

So we go over, hand over the passports (on the way I profusely thank the guy). she slams them around a bit, starts typing, is all sighing and moaning, shaking her head no. Something comes up with natasha's. I dont know what. She calls masha on the walkie talkie - masha cant hear her, she cant understand masha - goes back and forth for a while. OK - so can you imagine the scene? Now P is next to me giving a running timetable of when the flight will leave. "mom- -if we get through this in 5 min, then we have 20 min to get through passport control, 10 min through security, then 5 min to find our gate - we should make the flight!" P - stop - that is making me nervous - "mom, ok now we have 2 minutes, but maybe it will only take 10 min through passport control - then we will make our flight!" "please" I beg - "stop!"

So finally we get our boarding passes, load up the luggage, then she looks at Natasha's carseat - (I buy natasha a ticket so she has her own seat and I bring her carseat - I have a really cool roller thing so I can wheel it through airports and she can even sit in the carseat while I wheel her - it is pretty cool) Anyway - she says - "this is the carseat?" I say yes, she says "for on the plane?" I say yes. She says "no". I say - "what do you mean no? the baby has her own seat, this is an approved seat." She says no - and does the x with her arms (I hate that by the way - sends me over the edge). I called the cabin - they say no. I say - so you are telling me, you want the baby to sit in an adult seat? yes she says. you can check the carseat with your other luggage. (I curse - I think - quietly under my breath). Fine. Check it.

So we head over to passport control line. You know - they people in the glass booths. So we stand in line, when it is almost our turn - guess who shows up? Ticket lady! "I called the cabin again - you can take the car seat" Uhm ok. "great" I say "where is it?" great - back at the ticket counter. I look at the kids. I tell them "stay here - dont get out of line - dont let anyone ahead of us!" with natasha in one hand, I run back to the ticket booth, grab the car seat and run back. phew.

our turn.

we walk up to the guy. Without looking at us he says "how many?" I answer "four". He looks up. He PUTS HIS HEAD DOWN IN HIS HANDS! Shakes his head, then leans back in his chair, sighs loudly and looks at me. I look for a hidden camera, someone must be playing a joke on me. I hand over the passports. He yells at me "tickets - I need the tickets!" I fish in my purse for the tickets, hand them over. He doesnt touch them. He picks up the passports. The top one is Ms. She is standing next to me. The solid part of the wall between me and the ticket guy is in comes to barely the top of her head. He opens Ms passport, hold up the picture and says "who is this?!" I point down to M. He motions for me to pick her up. I say "seriously? you want me to pick her up?" then I say - "maybe you can stand up and then you can see her" (I know - not a good idea to get snarky with passport control) he answers "I can't stand up" whatever, with my free (?) arm I scoop up M - I say pretty snippy "see! this is M." The man laughs. Then he opens my passport, point to my picture and says "who is this?" I say "eta ya!" It is me! he looks back and forth between the picture and me about 6 times. P he can see, then he opens Natashas. Her passport picture was taken when she was 6 weeks old. She is now 18 months. She looks a bit different. He spends at least 3 minutes looking at her and the picture. Finally he stamps it with a sigh, flings everything at me and sends me on my way. I say in as nice a voice as I can muster "thank you very much, have a nice day!" He laughs again.

So then we get into the security line - no biggy there - the car seat wont fit through the machine so they argue a bit about who is going to inspect it. I ignore them. Finally we make it to the gate! phew! We are almost the last ones to board.

Sweet relief!

Then, the stewardess on KLM stopped us as we entered. "oh, here is the car seat" (English!) - yes I say cautiously (thinking hmm, Ticket gal did call the cabin after all!). She asks "how many point harness is it?" I think a minute - 5. I show her. She says- -no - we only accept 3 point harness, you cant bring this on the plane. Seriously? I say, 5 point is safer than 3 point, and this is an approved car seat! She says no again. I say - (deja vu?) - you are telling me that the airline prefers my infant daughter to sit in an adult seat, with an adult belt, instead of this approved car seat? She looks at me and says yes, we can check it here. I flip the seat over and show her - pointing a bit wildly - "it says right here in RED - approved for automobile and airplane use!" She looks, says "oh, ok, bring it on then". my mouth drops open. She says "well, it is good this happened because now you know you have an approved car seat." She smiles at me. I practically yell "This was NOT good! I already knew it was an approved car seat - that is why I bought it!!!" I push the kids to just get on the damn plane (I may or may not have murmured some curse words at that point as well). She just glares at me.

Then I sigh, turn back and say, sorry, I didnt mean to be so snappy, it has been a rough morning.

Uneventful after that.

When we were getting off the plane, my sister says "wow! you flew with Tim Robbins!" Really, I didnt even notice.