Sunday, March 11, 2007: the second time around

The day wanes, then returns somewhere over the Pacific.

I don't sleep well on the plane, mostly because there are many things to watch on the little TV. I end up watching four movies (all of them better than "Scoop" on the way over two weeks ago), and do get some sleep. The trip, though, doesn't feel as long as it actually is. Neither of the flights are as bad as I thought they would be.

But wait, there's more.

Long story short: we get to LAX (remember, I had already vowed not to return there, since I felt our outgoing experience was so bad), Leah's bag is too heavy for the gang at United despite the fact that we were traveling internationally, and they make her try and repack it using a second bag she brought. The guy -- NOT an actual airline employee, there is only one of them and she is clearly overworked; this guy is one of many from some other company that they've contracted to work at the counter -- spies the wine and says there is an airline policy prohibiting people from carrying large amounts of liquid in checked bags unless they are packed all special-like by the UPS store. Only the UPS store. They hand us an unprofessional looking hand-written flyer directing us to the UPS store 40 minutes away. We have 40 minutes till our flight.

So basically, after trying unsuccessfully to call everyone we know in the LA area to come pick up her wine, these bastards say she has to give it up and get on her plane or wait hours and hours for the next flight to New York. So she has to give up the $100 of wine she shlepped all over New Zealand and across the Pacific because these jerks can't handle moving a bag with liquids packed in bubble wrap inside without potentially spilling it. I hope everyone -- or at least the supervisor to whom we were told the bottles would go -- in the United domestic terminal at LAX enjoyed their specially imported New Zealand wine.

My bag, also carrying six bottles of wine, gets through no problem, because it wasn't too heavy that I had to open it in front of them. Do I feel like I've done something unethical by not declaring that I, too, had six bottles of wine that hadn't been packed by the UPS Store but instead had been packed by me, with tons of bubble wrap and placed inside those giant new Ziploc bags they have? Not on your life.

I see the sunset for the second time on the same day while we are somewhere over the middle of the United States. I am too tired to take my camera out and take a photo of it.

We finally get to New York where my parents and Gary and Leah's dad are all waiting for us and eager to carry our suitcases. It's good to be home but I think we are both unbelievably tired and wiped out.

The best part? That second bag that Leah had brought, the one she had moved some of her main suitcase's excess weight into, came through the trip fine. It even had the little love-note that the Transportation Security Administration puts inside to let you know they opened your bag and hand-inspected it. And inside, unscathed, were her two duty-free, non-UPS-Store-wrapped bottles of super-cheap Fiji-purchased alcohol.