Ok, we left at 4am. We thought we’d thought of everything.

We were all worried about a few things, though.

Being me, I was worried about the crime there. I greatly feared that my Canadian training would fail me.  “I will not give my wallet to you, villain. Now, step away or I shall give you a sound thrashing. Oh, gosh is that a gun?”

The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World feared me getting lost forever or The-Youngest touching the wrong thing or super smelly people on the subway or butterflies or bad hot dogs or The-Oldest wandering into traffic while composing a song in his head. I think her list was long and extensive.

The-Oldest feared he wouldn’t be able to compose any songs in his head on this trip or worse, NY bees would find him and attack him.

The-Youngest feared he wouldn’t be treated like an adult, that he would still be thought of as that kid who enjoyed running to the edge of the Grand Canyon and shouting to his mom, “Look how far down it is mom!”

Anyway, we were packed. We were excited. But at 4am, we were already tired.

Now, I don’t hate flying, but it was a 6-hour flight. I put that somewhere between a prostate exam and having to do my taxes.

However, the boys and their mom had seats together. That’s always a win. I was lucky not to get stuck in a middle seat (I had an aisle seat), but I dreaded sitting next to someone who would talk non-stop about their bodily functions or get up every ten minutes to exercise those functions.

We Uber’d it to the airport. For the first time ever, we all have room in our bags, room enough even to store a personal bag in case The-Youngest bought twenty pairs of gold-plated runners at Saks. The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World has used her new sorting bags and now everything has a little snug place. All of us packed enough for a week, since we’ll be able to use the laundry in our cousin’s apartment.

A good plan.

Sort of.

Unless we didn’t realize something really, really important.

More on that in the next blog post

Now, the boring part. We got our tickets without any problem. Once inside the airport, The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World was a superstar. Airline line? There. Boom. Luggage tagged and sent: Boom. Ticket scanner: Boom. Airline Gate: Right there. Boom.

We got through customs without any problem (though The-Oldest had a life-and-death battle with the ticket scanner), we had time to eat, the plane left on time, and we even boarded without any problems, then..

Whammo. We had to sit for 90 minutes while God moved the thunderstorms out of our way. It’s never fun sitting and waiting. Luckily, we’d paid for a direct flight or that would have buggered up connecting flights.

The 6-hour flight just became a 8 hour flight.

Ack.

Nonetheless, we finally took off.

I had nice neighbours – two young girls who spent 99.9% of the flight sleeping. I tried to sleep but failed. I watched some downloaded Netflix shows but even that didn’t hold my attention. I played some brainiac games. I ate all my fingernails. I shifted around in my seat like a two-year-old with a full diaper and glared at The-Youngest who had fallen asleep without any problems at all!

About halfway through the flight, we hit some nasty-ass turbulence.

When I went to the bathroom, I found out something new about myself: I cannot poo when an airplane is ricocheting around like a marble being shaken in a glass by a six-year-old hopped up on sugar in a bouncy castle.

We hit a spot where I felt like I was riding a mechanical bull, except, you know that I had my pants around my ankles. There was no way I could squeeze anything out with the fear of bouncing right off the toilet and my deposit flying around the small room like a scared bat.

So, I just held on to the metal toilet with both hands and prayed that I didn’t die in a very small bathroom 10,000 miles up.

After surviving that turbulence in the bathroom, I went back to my seat and thought of all the interesting things that could happen. An alien on the engine. A terrorist demanding all the candy we had. A Karen yelling at the attendant because she was seated next to a child. A mom smuggling a baby for sale in NYC. All three pilots being stricken with a zombie disease and I would be asked to fly the plane.

It kept my mind occupied.

Sadly, we landed without missiles being fired at us, found our baggage without any problem and even found another Uber after the first one bailed on us.

Uber, though, did not realize either how many people he was picking up or that we had enough baggage for a 10-year stay in the Arctic. He simply didn’t have a big enough car.

I suggested we tie her to the roof, but the driver didn’t have any rope. The-Youngest offered to hold on to the hood like they do in movies, but that was apparently ‘illegal.’ So we stuffed The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the World in the trunk.

The.

Trunk.

Technically, he folded out a 3rd-row seat, but it sure looked like she was in the trunk.

I have to say, it was kind of funny, but not so much when you looked in the back and saw The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World glowering back at you. .

The excitement rose as we crossed the bridge from New Jersey (where we landed) and into NY proper.

We had arrived.

NYC, watch out!

🙂