The flight from hell

rappy: cats+plane=scars for life
highwaygirl: awwww
highwaygirl: they will recover, it will just take time
rappy: I wasn't talking about the cats.

The poor kitties had been through a lot the past few weeks. Furniture disappearing, and along with them favourite perches, all sorts of strangers traipsing through the flat as I was showing it, movers, painters... They really had no idea what was going on and were a little on edge.

On the day of the flight I still had a bit of packing to do so I was a little ragged. M had flown in at 1 am the morning before and I went to meet him at the airport, we then spent the day running around getting all sorts of minutiae taken care of, and then threw a little going away party on my aunt's roof, which was great. Unfortunately, all this translated to practically no sleep. I had a mini-meltdown at around 3 pm but that wasn't anything that a good boyfriend, a loving sister and some ice cream couldn't fix.

I had arranged with the new tenant that he could come in to clean the apartment in the afternoon. We closed the cats on the balcony and went off to my sister's, and then proceeded to my cousin's house, where we whipped out some dinner and hung out until it was time to go to the airport. We swung by the house, picked up our luggage and the cats, and went to my brother's place to drop him off. The crying started approximately two seconds after the car started moving. It continued until about 10 minutes before we landed. Eight hours later.

It was miserable. We managed to get through check in and security fairly easily. We even cheated a little, placing Kiwi on the scale twice instead of having them weigh both cats. Schnitzel is a big girl and the limit was 8kg, including carrier. Had I known then what I know now, I would have just sent her in the hold...

We boarded the plane and within minutes the entire plane was grumbling. The cats continued to cry through boarding, taxiing, take-off and through to the seatbelt sign being switched off. I had another breakdown during this stage and balled my eyes out for a good 10 minutes. As soon as the seatbelt sign was off, M grabbed the two carriers and commandeered one of the two rear bathrooms. He placed Kiwi on the toilet seat (lid down) and lowered the baby-changing table to place Schnitzel on it. They did not stop crying for almost the entire time, but at least the passengers had some peace and quiet, even though they had to stand in line for the bathroom longer. We stayed in the bathroom, taking turns with them. Luckily the bathroom was clean.

At one point, during dinner service, one of the flight attendants told us we'd have to clear out of the bathroom after dinner. We brought out one cat and she immediately made a racket, so M asked another flight attendant, who got permission from the cockpit for us to stay in the toilet. Which is where we spent our time in shifts until we had to prepare for landing.

When the seatbelt sign came on again we brought them out, and miraculously they shut up after about a minute, remaining fairly quiet from that point forward. They were so quiet at the airport that we were never even stopped to have their documents checked.

Upon exiting the airport I sat down on a bench with them while M took the train a couple of stops to pick up his car. The cats? Silent. They were just looking around curiously.

We got home and quickly whisked them upstairs, closing the door to separate them from Sheleg, the resident cat. We both collapsed on the sofa bed almost immediately. M slept for three hours, I slept for seven. I was dead to the world.

Since then my girls have mostly stayed in the living room, though they do sometimes venture out, while Sheleg stays in the downstairs closet, mostly. They occasionally pass one another and hiss, but there's no fighting, so we're fairly pleased. I'll be happy when (and if) they become friends, but I think it'll be a while yet.

K & S seem to have forgiven me for the ordeal. I'm not quite certain if I'm ready to forgive them, however ;).

Posted by raptorgirl at July 20, 2007 06:23 PM