It was time for the actual packing! A couple of years back, we had bought a sherbet-green hard shell suitcase at TJ Maxx while on a California trip. Sharon and Randy had bought the other one. They are the easiest things to pick out on a luggage carousel, because NOBODY else has luggage of that color. An added bonus: they’re made by Delsey – they’re French. And the fact that the company also used to make quality toilet paper only added to their cachet.
We had the Delseys laid out on the bed and began to roll clothes and stuff them neatly into the cases. Everything was going smoothly, and I began to think that we were being really judicious and packing “light” for 18 days in Africa. And then Jean brought out the hundreds of Ziploc bags filled with every remedy known to man and things for any emergency or circumstance that we may encounter. Oy! And they were heavy once they were put in the suitcases. I began to worry about overweight luggage.
Meanwhile, the Gines (Lucy and Lily) were worriedly pacing and dancing around us, their antennae buzzing with the fact that something was wrong. Gines? Yes, it’s short for “dogines” (pronounced like ‘magazine’). I started using that term when Zoey and Spike were puppies, and the term easily transferred to Lucy and Lily. We were starting to feel guilty in advance for leaving the little nippers, but we had arranged for Bobo and her dog Tiffy to stay at the house with them while we were gone. At least they’d be home, but it still didn’t totally assuage the guilt we felt for leaving them — that small ache in your chest that wafts through your consciousness intermittently.
Once everything and the kitchen sink had been crammed into the Delseys and they had been zipped up, it was time to weigh them. Jean had bought a hand-held scale a few years ago that worked by hooking it to the suitcase handle and lifting the luggage up by a handle on the scale, then pressing a button on the front of the scale to lock in the weight. Accurate!! Easy!! I was sweating profusely after lifting the suitcases up multiple times and getting readings that ranged from 42 to 60 pounds. Different every time! The limit on all our airlines was 50 lbs, and I had no desire to be bent over swapping shit around at an airline counter. We also tried bathroom scales, but couldn’t read the number on them because the suitcases covered it up. We finally gave up and opted to gamble that we were underweight. As if.
Time was nigh to put the gines in “Home Alone” (their daytime playpen followed by treats) and drive to Atlanta for our first airline leg. They were so sad, it made us sad. But we were excited about the trip, and were soon driving the magic car to meet Louisa and Whanger at the parking spot. A colleague of Louisa’s had volunteered her driveway for us to park our cars while gone. From there we were going to Uber to the airport.
Jean had meanwhile discovered a special from Delta/AirFrance allowing upgrades to business class for 300 bucks apiece. It was an internet deal, and she was trying frantically to make it all happen on her phone as we were driving down 31. Instead of just pulling over for her to accomplish it, I stopped for gas at the Chevron. When I got back in the car after gassing up, she was curtly trying to bridge the language gap with the Delta salesperson. Our credit card had to be verified since we had put the travel notice on it a day earlier, and Jean was freaking out about losing the deal. She called the credit card company, got that taken care of, and called Delta back. The deal was still on. . . .but it wouldn’t go through for some reason! Turns out that Gate One had gotten the tickets for a special price, and this upgrade didn’t apply to discounted tickets. We were bummed. But I had a feeling Jean wasn’t going to let this one go.
We stopped in Anniston at a Wendy’s for some food. We could have stopped a million other places, but NO, we thought this would be fast. Yeah. Sure. We were met with sloth-like service followed by a kerfuffle between a Hispanic lady and the server at the counter. She was lambasting the server about being impertinent and slow and a million other things and demanding her money back. The server shot back, “I’m a grown up. I can do whatever I want. You can’t talk to me like that!” Finally the manager shuffled up and gave the woman her money back then reluctantly took her tray full of food back to the kitchen. I was wondering who was going to eat it. It took the impertinent server another ten minutes to take the orders of two young ladies. The second one stayed there forever ruminating on what to get. When the server had finally pinned her down, punched in the order and asked her name (a new Wendy’s feature), the girl told her: “Felicia. But it’s spelled FEH-LEIGH-TCHA (or something like that).” The server gamely tried to put this in the register, and the girl kept correcting her on the spelling, adding “It really doesn’t matter, It’s just pronounced ‘Felicia,’ but you’ve got it wrong. It’s FEH-LEIGH-TCHA.” The server attacked it again, the name was finally entered to Fehleightcha’s satisfaction and it was my turn to order. Jean missed all this hilarity because she was in the bathroom.
Got to Atlanta almost simultaneously with Louisa and Whanger, though we had expected our Wendy’s delay to make us 15 minutes late. Arranged for the magic car to direct us to the parking spot, which was achieved with no hitch. It was a nice neighborhood of new houses cheek to jowl on a narrow access road. We were directed to park on the road since there was no room in the driveway. I was kinda freaked out, because it was a narrow road with a high concrete curb that led only to the homes in the neighborhood. There were signs warning of cars being towed if parked illegally. Louisa told us that the homeowner had assured her that it would be fine to park there – that people did it all the time. She was going to move our car when she got home two days later. There was nothing to do but leave it there, say a prayer and wait for the Uber driver, who had already been dispatched.
Got to the Atlanta airport, which looked even bigger and more impressive than it ever had. Construction was everywhere. “Bustling” is a weak word to describe it. Our great Uber guy pulled right up to curbside check-in and got all our stuff out. Bag after bag after bag after bag after bag. The check-in guy was also great. Upon weighing our two Delsey suitcases, he announced that one of them was overweight. Well, DUH. He told us to open that one, get out a pair of flip flops or something similar, put them into the other suitcase and he would pass the bags. I think he was looking for lip service effort on our part, which we gladly performed, though bending over those bags after a Wendy’s meal of chicken fingers was not fun. Gave him a nice tip and schlepped the carry-on luggage into the airport: a big backpack and Jean’s gigantic red Baggalini were our “personal items.” We also had regulation-size official carry-ons for the overhead bins. Aieeeee!!! In contrast, Whanger and Louisa were carrying two demure purple suitcases and a couple of meager backpacks. Sigh.