"I'm sorry...."

...but I don't show a reservation for you in the system."

That's what the Delta ticket agent at LAX said to my friend Carol and I when we showed up to catch our flight on Saturday morning. We stood there perplexed. Charlie had just dropped us off and said good-bye. And there we were, bags packed and ready to get on a 10:00 am flight to Florida. Just like our friend M, who had made all the arrangements had told us:

"Don't be late. Our plane leaves at 10:00, and you know how LAX is. So be there at 9:00 if you can. Ok?"

Carol and I always try to be compliant where M is concerned. M is the career business woman. She's the one that's led the jet-set life since high school. World traveler, 6-digit income, bon vivant, linquist. You name it, she knows about it. So back in April, when she told us she had booked tickets for Carol and myself to go to Jax Beach, Florida to visit our other bud from high school, Cindy, her treat, we of course, wrote it in pen on our calendars.

A few days before the trip, Carol called me:

Carol: Hey Girl...I just talked to M and she told me to tell you that we should only take CARRY-ON luggage. That will save us some time.

Me: ::::silence::::

Carol: Pua?

Me: Um...Carol?

Carol: Yes?

Me: I can't even fit ONE pair of my pants into carry-on.

Carol: :::laughing::: THANK GOD! That's exactly how I feel! So we should get to the airport earlier than M. That way, we can check our luggage in without her even knowing it. By the time she gets there, we'll be all checked in and ready to go. We can tell her that we have to go to baggage claim when we get to Florida. Deal?

Me: Sounds like a plan!

So that's how it went. Carol got to my house early, Charlie drove us the 40 miles to LAX, and now we stood at the counter, with the Delta representative telling us that there are no tickets for us. As the rep is looking over the "E ticket" printout I gave to her and trying to figure things out, my cell phone rings;

Me: Hello?

M: :::grumpy::: Hi.

Me: What's up Sweetie?

M: I'm at the airport. My travel agent never followed through and booked the flight for us.

Me: Uh..yeah. I'm getting that impression.

M: So don't even bother coming to the airport.

Me: Well, actually, we're already here.

M: What? Where are you?

Me: We're at Delta 5

M: I'm right outside. Come out here.

I should have looked at this as an omen; a foresight of things to come in the following days. But, what the hell? Here I was with a week to spare, and I'm a roll-with-the-flow kinda girl. Little did I know that at the end of 6 days, I was going to earn my gold medal in Flow Rolling.

When Carol and I go outside of the terminal to meet M, she was standing there with her little rolling carry-on, and she was FUMING. We both, kinda pulled our regular sized suitcases BEHIND us so she couldn't see them right away. We needn't have worried. She was too pissed off to notice.

"So?," we asked, "what happened?". We proceeded to get the lowdown on how her agent hadn't followed through and paid for the tickets when M okay'd them back in April. Therefore, M had to pay for us to get seats on a flight leaving the following day. The catch? She paid $1,000 PER seat. At that, Carol and I played the "mass drop" game. Our jaws fell open. We were doing a mosquito hangar impression. We looked at each other and then looked at M. Neither one of us could afford that kind of airfare. I'm a simple housewife. Unemployed for over a year now. Charlie and I had to use money from a home equity line of credit to pay for the trip to Hawaii to meet my family. Carol rents a room in her brother's house. That kind of kala (money) was WAY outside our means. M saw our faces and said..."Oh please. This is nothing. I always figure out a way. So come on, we're going to my house to hang out until tomorrow." Like dutiful $1,000 slaves, Carol and I followed obediently.

Being the world traveler, M always parks her car in airport parking and leaves it there when she goes on her trips. We loaded our luggage, and for the first time, M notices that Carol and I don't just have carry-ons:

M: What the fuck, you guys!

Carol & Pua: :::laughing:::

M: That's the biggest fucking carry-on luggage I've ever seen!

Carol: Well, I called Pua the other night and we had a little talk about you and your carry-on. We're two big and beautiful women whose accoutrements cannot be contained in that little purse you call a carry-on. So deal with it.

M: :::laughing::: You two kill me.

M has a beautiful home in Simi Valley, so she called her boyfriend Jerry, and told him that he was going to have unexpected guests tonight. Jerry's a BEAUTIFUL hockey playing Czech. You KNOW how I love hockey players. So hey, I'll float in the pool, and watch Jerry walk around. Not a problem. My vacation has already begun. We made a quick stop at the stables so that M could show us her new horse, Stretch, who as it turns out, loved me and we had some very nice muzzle to muzzle time. Carol was jealous. M said Jerry was built like Stretch. I was jealous. :o)

So, Carol and I spent a beautiful afternoon lounging around M and Jerry's pool and laughed about the way things were going at the start of our adventure. Unfortunately, M suffered a migraine (I'm sure it was stress) and retired early. Jerry took Carol and I out to dinner, then we came home and tried to get a good night's sleep. After all, we were heading back to LAX in the morning...

and THAT my dear friends, is just the beginning of the chaos....