The Quest For Flight

Just remember the cats are not the grossest things about this car ride.

BWI is so damn far from DC. Don't let them fool you with those commercials! At five o'clock in the afternoon on a friday after two hours in traffic you are
so *going* to be regretting that choice. More advice for stupid people, don't hide food from babies.

Here is how I arrived at that piece of wisdom. We managed to load the car with the kids, my mom, the stroller and four huge bags (three for me and one for my mom to send to
my relatives). We were only twenty minutes late rocketing down the Dulles toll road to BWI. We were stunned that the beltway was jammed on a friday (I
don't know why we were stunned we just were) and took my evil secret routes to pop onto the beltway to find ourselves at Georgetown Pike where we took the
onramp onto a slightly less crowded beltway. We crossed and had stop and go all the way to BWI. Now this was in our white minivan, a 2003 Dodge Grand
Caravan. It just started making this nasty grinding noise that we think means the brakes need to be fixed, but then after the beltway two step for an hour
it has found a whole new range of mechanical cacophony. This is my *gentle* reminder for my wife to see a mechanic.

Anyway after an hour my eldest son K had to pee. Then the kids were hungry. Then my mom decided, to her credit, to entertain the children. Unfortunately
she chose to go through a list of the geneaology of the cats in her family starting from the first cat my Aunt Mabel got from her Piano teacher in 1963 in
Santiago all the way down to her cat Storm who she renamed the Vulture because of the way he perches on the rooftop of her home in Culpeper. I pulled the plug on this glorious history after she started talking about the jasmine bush in Antofagasta chopped down last week.

Apparently my Mom's sisters are in Antofagasta right now. As part of the aftermath of my grandaunt Alquinoi's death they chopped down (well they paid $100 for someone else to cut down) a jasmine bush a few days ago so that they could access apartments and secret rooms on the property given up to the wild years before I was born. What does this have to do with cats? Gentle reader, it never rains in

Antofagasta. Seriously. They found the mummified corpses of two cats in the bush. That was when I put my hands up over my head in the shape of an O as the international symbol for oversharing.

The cats are not the grossest thing about this car ride.

After explaining the whole oversharing symbol thing to my mom, my daughters found the licorice I bought last week at X-Men 3 with Cyaneyed. Found as in saw it on the kitchen table, snagged it, and then asked really loud if they could have
it - which means they have to share it with K-dude and my wife who are within sight of Spike our gaping maw of a toddler. They handed a stick of licorice to my eldest son K-dude. I told him fateful words I will regret to my dying day.

Don't let Spike see you eating licorice.

In truth I thought I was justified. My youngest stodgyspike is too young for licorice, more than that, I was worried he would choke or gag on it. So out of
sight, out of mind. Right?

Here you are expecting me to say something like Spike figured it out or K-dude figured out a real inventive way to hide the licorice, but no, much worse. Everyone in the car keeps talking about cats and then all of a sudden K-dude projectile vomits.

Orange and red technicolor pre-school lunch all over his front, his integrated car seat, the foot well in front of him, the back of my seat.

Apparently the minivan bumped at just the wrong moment and K-dude gagged on the licorice.

The cats are not the grossest thing about this car ride.

My mom and I leapt into action as the acrid yet oddly sweet aroma of preschooler vomit filled the minivan. My mom liberally (until my wife and I simultaneously yelled at her) applied most of Spike's diaper wipes to cleaning up Kieran while I used napkins to clean everything I could reach. After
four kids I collect napkins from fast food resturants the same way bees collect pollen. I wonder what would happen if I installed McDonald's Napkins at a

Taco Bell. I mean would they then make McNugget Burritos? Don't laugh that is how they got those awful KFC/Taco Bell things.

I got sidetracked.

OK, so we cleaned him off and I came up with the optimal plan. Cho (my eldest daughter) and I would get the luggage checked in while my wife and SR (my younger daughter), and Spike

would park the car. Then my Mom would take K-dude and clean him up. Well we get there and SR goes off with my Mom and K-dude. And Cho and I check in! We

check in within three minutes of arriving and we go up to the security gate and check the bathroom next to the security gate.

No Mom. No K-dude. No SR.... My Mom did not follow the logical signs to American Airlines Departure. Despite the fact I am thirty minutes behind schedule.

Now this annoying lack of urgency is something my mother claims is endemic to the latin way of life. She usually claims this while shrilly proclaiming to anyone who would listen "Soy Latina!" Well, see here mother of mine. You mated with an Irish-German hoosier. That means your offspring generally like keeping schedules and drinking...in about equal measure. Hence after the tenth minute of waiting for the rest of my family I went off to look for them or a belt of whisky.

They of course walked up all together as if nothing was really the matter. Fortunately, Cho had found everyone and gathered them together. I hugged my kids
as they said goodbye and cried, I let go and doing my best not to cry myself went through security and on to the concourse.