By the Skin of Our Teeth

We woke up at 5 am. The flight was at 7. We were already in the airport. We thought this meant we had plenty of time. Between repacking and getting two fast-asleep kids out the door (we just put Joffre straight from the bed into the stroller), it was 6:05 when we left the hotel room. We got to the Alaska Airlines First Class check-in, and there was no line. Wonderful, we thought, pushing a luggage cart that greatly ressembled the Grinch's post-epiphany sleigh, up to the counter. "That flight's already closed," said the agent, "but we'll see what we can do." She and another agent danced around our mountain of bags, tagging them, as I frantically filled address labels. We tried to race through to customs and immigration - through which one passes in the Vancouver airport - but we were hampered by our ridiculous quantity of baggage. Between the mountain of bags and the duck-footed baby strapped to Aaron's chest (more on that later), we drew stares and whispers as we went. "That takes talent," commented one fellow traveller, while a kindly old man said to me, "are you moving?" "Yes," I whispered, "to Peru." It seemed such an outrageous statement that I felt like I was lying.

When the immigration official asked where we were going, and we told her, she asked if we were going as missionaries. We said no, but that we were likely to miss our flight if we didn't get through in time.

At 6:29, we loaded our bags onto the luggage belts. As we started to hoist the carseats onto the rack, an agent came up and said, "oh, those go to #4, the belt for special - hey, your carseats aren't tagged!" What ensued was a jumble of accusations and redirections, since the baggage handlers were convinced that it was our fault that our seats hadn't been properly tagged, and seemed to believe that we wanted to gate check them (which would have meant carrying them to the door of the aircraft, and then carrying them through our LA stopover). A baggage handler radioed the Alaska Airlines desk, while I whispered vehemently that we did NOT want the bags gate checked, but wanted to send them down the #4 conveyor belt post haste.

At 6:36, a bored-looking Alaska agent tagged the carseats, looked at us in consternation, and said, "are you flying standby?" "NO!" we proclaimed in unison (in a striking break with convention, Aaron speaking loudly and me whispering). "Oh," she said, derision dripping from every pore, "you just checked in so late they couldn't give you seats."

We got into the fast track security line, and of course were required to place our many and varied carry-on items onto yet another conveyor belt. We also had to get Joffre out of the stroller and fold it up. He took the opportunity to announce, "I need go potty now!" I decided, the nighttime pullup he was in would have to suffice for now. Security, sensing our urgency, insisted I open one of my bags and, for the first and so far only time in my life, I "set off" the metal detector. I firmly believe that the security agents can make it go off if they want a closer look at you, since I had nothing on that should have set it off, and did not set off the ones in LA or Lima, wearing exactly the same things.

At 6:49, we had figured out where our gate was and were running now, stripped of our tower of luggage, for the gate while the PA system played our song: "Alaska Airlines is paging remaining passengers Cannon and Gunson, party of three, for flight 601 to Los Angeles." Breathless and contrite, we collapsed - I wheezing disconcertingly - into our ample, comfy seats, where bottled water was blessedly waiting, and sat back to enjoy the first leg of our journey. It was 7 am and I felt as though I'd already had a full day.