Airport Run

Took daring daughter and her cohort to the airport at oh dark thirty this morning. Rain, rain, rain. Pavement has grooves from people driving with studded tires all winter. Grooves were full of water. There were several places where there was so much water the car lost traction. Tried to drive off-center in my lane so as not to be riding in the grooves. Tricky. Not so bad in the corners, the grooves disappear there.

Janey, the cohort, was concerned that her suitcase might be overweight. At least she weighed it. Looking at it, it certainly looked like it could be overweight, it was certainly big enough. Kathryn's suitcase was a little smaller but definitely heavier. When we got to the airport we used curb-side check-in and there we discovered that her bag was definitely over-weight: thirteen pounds over the fifty pound limit. I asked the Skycap what the charge for an overweight bag would be and found out that for domestic flights the charge is $90. For international, which is what this was, he would have to check. Never mind, $90 is enough to scare me. So now duaghter opens her suitcase on the sidewalk and starts rooting around looking for thirteen pounds of stuff to pull out. Fortunately one of the things she has in her suitcase is another small carrying bag, so she has someplace to put the stuff she pulls out of the suitcase. She fills it, but it still isn't enough. She finally gets under the limit by pulling out a pair of boots, which Janey graciously volunteers to stuff into her carry-on bag.

Daughter's suitcase is one of these expandable jobs. It has a zipper that goes all the way around the outside. Unzip it, and it allows the bag to expand by a couple of inches. Zip it up and it shrinks back to normal size. She had it unzipped. Let that be a warning sign. If you have to use your bag's expansion feature, there's a good chance your bag will be overweight, and you are going to be hit with a hefty surcharge.