Chicago, old friends, and what the airlines really mean by "hidden fees."

I always get a thrill flying by myself. It's not even like I get special attention from the flight attendants, or my very own golden wings pin. (Gotta cut costs somewhere I guess.) Still, traveling on my own, I feel a little like spy Sydney Bristow from Alias.

On the surface I look cool, independent. Maybe I'm a business woman on her way to close an important deal, perhaps I'm an independently wealthy jet setter checking on her villa in the south of France. It gives me a rush to check in, pass thru security and head to my gate like I do this all the time. No one is the wiser that I am a Suburban wielding, activities committee helping, sports mom who finally got around to packing for her trip sometime after midnight and just got a text message after sitting down in the terminal that her two year old has diarrhea.

These are little gems of info just for me.

Last week I somehow tricked my amazing husband into letting me go to Chicago for the weekend to visit my friends back home.

(The actual conversation may have included bargaining tactics like: This could be Valentine's Day and my birthday present combined. And: I hardly ever get to go back to my childhood home (sniff sniff) but it's all a bit fuzzy now.)

The biggest deal sealer was the fact that I found a great ticket. I mean, I almost needed to go just to take advantage of the deal. (My husband is not yet a full subscriber to my spend-money-to-save-money theory, but I'm working on him.)

But as I'm coming to realize, all "great" airline fairs should have an * by them. Basically a disclaimer saying the total price is:

*180 dollars-we're-not-investing-any-money-or-effort-into-this-flight-and-you'll-get-to-your-destination-by-the-Grace-of-God-and 50 cents. Plus tax.

The other seemingly small inconvenience of a great ticket fare is a connecting flight. And when you're not hauling four kids, a car seat, diaper bag and 12 carry-ons, a quick plane switcheroo seems like no skin off your nose. My flight from DFW was stopping in Memphis to switch planes onto what I was informed was a "hopper" plane. A 56 passenger plane that would take us on to Chicago. I don't know who the airline's PR person is, but I hope they are paid well. This "hopper plane" looked more like a Suburban with wings, a fact only more confirmed in my mind when carry on bags had to be stored underneath the plane for lack of room. If first class can look down their nose at Coach, then Coach can certainly look down their nose at "hopper flights." It's only fair.

Our glorified SUV arrived in the Windy City without a hitch (creating a false sense of security for the ride home) and I had the best time with my friends which included being way to loud in restaurants, being given free rides in strange cars and living to tell about it, a Bulls game and making it onto the Jumbo tron (thanks Ben!), shopping on Michigan Avenue, sleeping in, new adventures in cuisine, girl talk, "recalculating!", getting insulted at Ed Debevic's, and basically taking all of about 2 minutes to fall back into my Chicago accent.

Can you guess from the back of his head which celebrity we camera stalked at the game?



That's right...Vince Vaughn, court side with Benny the Bull!


Sigh. Chicago. How can you not love this city??

I may have gotten a bit more than I bargained for with this "Seafood Salad." On the bright side, my guess is that it was amazingly fresh, seeing that it was just harvested from the ocean floor moments earlier.

You see what we did here...clever no? NikeTown Chicago is a totally different store than it was back in the 90's where it was a borderline shrine to Jordan.


Me and Stephanie with the view from our hotel.

Don't let our sweet smiles fool you. We were entirely too loud for this small defenseless Potbelly's bakery.


At first our Ed Debevic's waiter (Tiger) told me he could care less it was my birthday, but his heart softened enough to deliver an embarrassing yet wonderful Opera style birthday song serenade.

Me and Melinda feeling giddy after being abused at Ed's (you're supposed to be, that's their thing) and high on our sugar filled dessert.

Sports lover or no, the United Center is basically awesome, getting on the Jumbo tron (random people after the game recognized us from our brief stint with fame), is even more awesome, and feeling the amazing energy from thousands of screaming Bulls' fans is simply icing.

Post game fun! I think we we're trying to take this of ourselves??

Me and Lisa. Affectionately known as "Lavern."

Our very pregnant friend Alice lives downtown and her husband is Chicago PD. It felt very Law and Order to me and we had Matt tell us all his craziest stories from the street. Al couldn't join in the madness, so we brought the madness to her for a little while.

Monday morning rolled around, and my undercover spy mission as a footloose and fancy free girl was coming to an end. My flight connected in Memphis again and I was planning on getting home an hour or so after my kids got home from school. Book club was that night and I had been reading my book at every possible free minute and was ready with questions and a great discussion that evening.

See asterisk.

I was mentally prepared this time as I bordered another "hopper flight." What I was not prepared for was an hour and 15 minute delay while sitting on the runway. (They said some sort of paperwork this or that. My guess? Flight control wasn't sure the kiddie plane was air worthy.) We get to Memphis over an hour late, and since my connecting flight was scheduled to have left 15 minutes before we landed, I am banking on bad news.

The Memphis airport apparently was unprepared for our miniature plane and didn't have a gate to accommodate us. We deplaned down the ladder onto the tarmac like we're the Oceanic Six or something. From there I learned I had in fact missed my connecting flight (shocker) and could I please go down to the next Terminal to get instructions. The next Terminal found me, luggage in tow, breathless, awaiting "Donna" with 3 inch red nails busily typing on her computer. I gave her every traveler's cue that I was in a massive hurry, but whatever she was trying to type was extremely important, maybe even a matter of National Security. Darn it if those 3 inch nails weren't helping matters! After being blatantly ignored for four minutes Donna seemed to see me for the first time: "Oh, yes, can I help you?"

"Yes Donna. I have missed my connecting flight and need to get on the next possible one." Said while handing her old boarding pass, license, trying to be helpful...

"You see that sign over there that says, 'Need help?'"

"Yes."

"That's were you need to go."

Okkaaayyy. I can't help thinking Sydney Bristow wouldn't get treated like this.

The Need Help sign was hung over a standing scanner. I scanned my boarding pass and just like magic a new one printed out with my new flight. For six hours later.

You can imagine my relief that I was now at the official help center because this scanner was going to have its work cut out for it. I would need help with my kids after school until Rhett got home, a place to be besides the Memphis airport for 6 hours, a new book to read, a way to magically transport my insights and thoughts over to my book club and more than a 7 dollar meal voucher when the cheapest thing to eat was 8.95.

One bag of cashews, a mediocre Cobb salad, new book and a Diet Mountain Dew later I was ready to board and for a few minutes my heart lifted in hope. We were boarding early, it wasn't a full flight, I had the seat next to me free, the pilot said it would be an hour and 10 minute flight to DFW and I even started to get the crazy notion I could swing by and grab the last hour of book club.

I blame myself really for the following events. The airlines can smell happiness.

We had pulled out onto the runway, gathered speed only to come to a halt. Turns out another flight was headed out to another airport in Dallas and after they boarded they were told there was a mechanical problem. But seeing as their flight only had 16 people on a 56 passenger flight, me thinketh the problem was less technical, more just being cheap. They de-board those people, got them down to our plane where we have now driven back to pick them up. See. Apparently I am not the only one who thinks the hopper plans are actually Suburbans.

As the new passengers board I lose the free seat next to me. My new seat mate then proceeds to talk to me about anything and everything despite me giving her every social cue I posses that I have no desire to talk for the next hour. I was tired, frustrated, my cashews were gone, my head hurt...and I'm sorry, if someone has their earphones in and and a book opened on their lap and you still proceed to tell them how coyotes ate your neighbor's dog, you might just be a lunatic. No offense.

After upping my ignoring game to rummaging through my purse and pretending to check my email, Gabby Gabberson did finally get the hint. It was about this time that I started to notice that our fight attendant looked alot like the R&B singer Usher. Which only was significant to me because of my in depth knowledge of reality TV.

You see, there's a show where celebrities go under cover in "regular jobs" and suddenly this whole nightmare started to make a bit of sense. What if we were all being punked right now? What if they were planning all along for us to get mad and nasty to our "flight attendant", who really is celebrity singer Usher, only for him to yell, "Hey guys! It's actually me! Usher! You guys are good sports, free flights on my private jet for everyone!"

But the closer we got to the airport with no hidden cameras being revealed, the more I lost hope. In fact, 20 miles from the airport we hit crazy turbulence and went from seeing the city lights to thick heavy clouds. I stopped looking for cameras and started glancing around for signs of Jack Sheppard or Hurley aboard the flight.

Upon arriving safely at DFW the Usher look alike apparently mistook my glances at him and offered me his business card upon deplaning. I didn't really have time to be horrified or explain that my husband and four children may not like it. It was late, I was home, I was not transported to the LOST island, I had an awesome weekend with amazing friends...if the worst thing was that I ended up not being on a reality show and a fake Usher gave me his number, I suppose you really can't complain.