Leaving on a Jet Plane

Kelly left today to go spend 10 days with her Grandma. They will have a GRAND time together. They are two peas in a pod, cut from the same cloth.

There's her plane!

She's excited, and pensive, and squirmy, and calm, all swirled into one.

Back in the day, Unaccompanied Minors had to wear a big pouch around their neck, with all their paperwork in it. Today, it seems, they just give you this button to wear.

See that red and white button on her shirt? I think they should make you wear more than that, though. The gate crew knew she was an unaccompanied minor, but somehow that info got lost in translation, so when she went to the plane...

...and *seemed* to know what she was doing, the flight crew just kind of ignored her. The gate crew (who I had chatted up, and told jokes with) let me come down to the plane to take her photo before the flight left.

The gate crew guy, bringing the paperwork from the gate, says "And the UM..." to which the stewardess says "Oh, we don't have any UM's on our flight", and I say "UM? Does that mean Unaccompanied Minor?" and she says "Yes... please take your seat", and the gate dude says "She's not on this flight. She's taking a photo of an UNACCOMPANIED MINOR", and the stewardess says "Well, she doesn't have any PAPERWORK, so how could I know?"

Ahem...

Breakdown in communication much?

Kelly had ALL her paperwork. And she had it ALL in a safe place, all together in a folder in her backpack, JUST like the manager at Check In had told her to keep it. And quite frankly, for the HUNDRED DOLLAR FEE that we had to pay just for this ONE leg of the journey, I would HOPE that I would be getting some value. The guy must have seen the look on my face because he said "OK, mom. You go back to the terminal, and I'll straighten stuff out here on the plane."

But all was well. She's quite able to take care of herself, and Grandma is waiting for her on the other end.

Have a fabulous time, honey!