I am NEVER stepping foot in an airport with Brianna EVER AGAIN!!
My dad has some exterminator’s convention in Indianapolis, which is where my mom’s BFF from high school lives, and Grandma had some frequent flyer miles that needed to get used. So apparently we’re taking a family trip to Indi for mid-winter break.
This is how the day started: The airport shuttle picked us up at 5:00!! I am not even kidding!!! I slept in the clothes I planned to wear so I could just roll out of bed and into the van.
Brianna didn’t even roll. My dad carried her from her bed to the shuttle, where she then drooled on my shoulder all the way to the airport. But hey, she was asleep! Asleep Brianna is my favorite Brianna!!
Then we got to the airport.
My parents couldn’t figure out how to use the touch-screen machine for automated check-in. Sometimes it’s like they’ve never seen a computer before! So I stepped in and checked us in, while they hovered over my shoulder. When we turned around with our boarding passes…no Brianna.
My mom went into the same panic she goes into any time we lose Brianna. But honestly, we lose Brianna ALL THE TIME. She runs off. I don’t even worry anymore, because we always find her. And an airport seems like the best possible place to get lost! There are security people EVERYWHERE!!!
We each went a different direction, agreeing to meet back at Starbucks in ten minutes. There was a souvenir shop nearby, so I went there first. Brianna would LOVE all those shiny, overpriced trinkets.
I didn’t find her there, so I checked the closest bathroom. When Brianna’s gotta go, she’s GOTTA GO. But she wasn’t there either.
I still had a couple minutes before I should turn back, so I kept walking. And finally, wandering past the Air Africa counter, I saw her!
“Brianna!!” I dodged around a giant family with their suitcases open on the floor, rearranging things. “What are you doing?”
Brianna looked past me. “I’m trying to find the carousel.”
“The…what? There’s no carousel in the airport!!”
“Is too! Daddy told me last night, when he was explaining everything that would happen in the airport! There’s a carousel! Except instead of horses, it’s suitcases that you ride.”
OMG. The BAGGAGE carousel. There was no way I could explain this right now. The ten minutes had already passed and my parents were sure to be freaking out that they’d lost me too.
“The carousel is later, Brianna. Come ON.”
I would have texted my parents that I’d found her, except I didn’t trust her not to run off if didn’t keep a firm grip on her.
Sure enough, when we got to the Starbucks, my parents were talking to a security guy.
“I got her, Mom!” I called over a group of businessmen choosing their lattes.
My mom shrieked. The security guy sighed and muttered something into his walkie-talkie. Probably calling off the airport-wide lockdown my parents had demanded.
“What happened?” My mom seized Brianna like she’d been away at war for years. “Are you all right?”
“She’s fine. Shouldn’t we get in the security line?”
My mom clucked over Brianna as we headed to that monster line where you have to go through the longest, most boring maze ever, before taking off your shoes and walking into that thing that looks like some sort of space pod.
“Puppy!” Brianna screamed after we’d been in line for a couple minutes.
Sure enough, there was a security guy with a German Shepherd on a tight leash, sniffing for drugs, bombs, or dangerous toiletries—whatever those dogs are trained to sniff for.
“That puppy is working,” my dad said.
Brianna knows about working dogs. We have a neighbor with an assistance dog and she KNOWS she’s not supposed to interrupt the dog in any way. But this was Airport Brianna and all logic had flown away with the planes!!
She DOVE under the divider and threw her arms around the dog. “Puppy!!!”
My mom gasped, but the dog snuffled and licked Brianna.
The security guy, though? He boomed, “Step AWAY from the dog, Miss!”
Brianna’s eyes got huge. My parents were frozen. I stepped under the divider and took Brianna’s hand to pull her back.
“She’s just a little kid,” I muttered.
“STEP AWAY FROM THE DOG!”
Brianna and I scrambled back to our spot in line while the dog just wagged his tail.
We FINALLY got through the line. Brianna insisted on taking off her shoes, even though under-12s don’t have to. She also REALLY wanted to go in the space pod scanner thing, but little kids go through the totally unimpressive archway. So she was a giant GRUMP by the time we found our gate.
My mom dragged her off to find doughnuts and I am FINALLY able to chill with my diary!!
All this and we haven’t even gotten on the plane yet!!!
Is it too much to hope she might sleep all the way to Indiana???
