Getting to France - Lessons in Airline Inefficiency

Upon arrival at DFW airport with four huge bags (one full of only shoes) and two carry-ons, I was certain that I would have to pay a hefty fee for it all. Although between my husband and me, the amount of baggage was within nameless airline's limit, there was no way it was within the allotted weight. So, I was resigned to pay a ridiculous fee because, hey, let's face it - I was impressed that I could get all my stuff into that amount of luggage in the first place. I mean, I am moving to the FASHION CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, people.

Oddly, the fact that it was taking us a while to man the self-service check-in stations did not fluster me, but instead my usually calm husband, B, who seemed sure that we were going to miss our flight. Maybe it had to do with the fact that there is no curb-side check in for international flights and lugging the six pieces of luggage up the stairs was no easy feat, I'm not sure. What I do know is that a few minutes later when nameless airline employee told B that he wasn't sure he was the same person in the photo because he looks so much heavier in it than he is now, I thought he might spontaneously combust.

From there, things snowballed. Two of the bags were grossly overweight and instead of just paying for it, the nameless airline employee insisted that right there on the floor in front of an entire angry waiting mob I should just try to rearrange things between all the suitcases. Well, that's just perfect. I am in a low riding juicy suit from college and everyone can see my underwear as I bend over and furiously throw random things from one perfectly packed suitcase to another until randomly without weighing it nameless airline employee decides I've embarrassed myself enough and tells me everything is now equally distributed and we only owe him $50! Then he tells us to take the six bags 15 gates down to the security area to drop them off. 15 gates. Awesome. Husband-who-is-convinced-we-will-miss-flight is completely about to unwind and I can still feel the death stares coming from the people behind us in line. Off we go, 15 gates down and then 15 back to our departure gate. Luckily, we made it on time so that we could sit in front of a screaming baby for 4 hours to Boston.

Who knew we would be begging for the screaming baby on the flight to France instead of the two people who sat behind us on an overnight flight and decided to keep their lights on and discuss such interesting topics as theatre, philosophy and graduate school at a very high decibel? It was when they began to discuss post-Katrina New Orleans that I almost lost it and screamed, "I will go post-Katrina New Orleans crime on your a-- if you don't shut up." But alas, I just shot them the death stare I had learned from the people behind us in line at DFW.

Many sleepless hours later, we landed in La Belle France, made it to our tiny abode and fell fast asleep to the sound of silence.