How Southwest Airlines Lifted My Spirits This Halloween

 

I had big plans for this month, my most favorite month of all. But one thing after another squelched them. It left me in a very sinister mood.

Being haunted by ants (long story), my site crashing, and then mid-month I found myself taking an unexpected jaunt.

I should’ve been excited about the last one. It ended up involving a cruise, my most favorite form of jaunting,

But I wasn’t happy about it, because I couldn’t get out of my own head.

I kept having to switch gears and put out fires. I wasn’t accomplishing anything I’d hoped to. The last thing I wanted to do was take a vacation.

Quality Time

But I couldn’t very well pass it up. For the last 14 years my husband and I have taken a lot of vacations. He’s had to work during every single one of them.

Not the whole time, but a little –sometimes a lot– the majority of the days we’re gone.

I couldn’t help but wonder, What would it be like to really be on vacation without him taking calls and checking emails all the time?

My brain knew I better take advantage of having his undivided attention before he starts his new job. Who knows when we’ll get to take our next vacation. And when we do, he’ll likely have to work part of the time again. (Job hazard for the particular line of work he’s in.)

In a twist of irony, however, I could still work on vacation and write the posts I had planned.

If we didn’t take a cruise.

Trip Planning Blues

A lot of my stress came from a couple of things:

1. Not knowing exactly when his last day would be.
2. He really wanted to take a cruise.

Depending on the ship, cruise ship Internet plans are crazy expensive. Some are as much as $200. Most are between $50-100.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t pay that for a month of Internet. And I don’t make enough from my blogging to justify paying that for a week so…

If we cruised, I’d be dead in the water.

Halloween Hot Spots Here We Come!

Instead of a cruise, my husband agreed to stick to a domestic trip for a change.

Even better, he said he’d take me to places I’d always wanted to visit: Boston, Salem, and then we’d rent a car and drive over to the Hudson Valley and check out Sleepy Hollow.

Wow! It was a dream jaunt come true.

Which it would’ve been, if not for my Season of Glitches.

Dream Trip Becomes a Nightmare

Because of my site crashing nonsense, I hadn’t had time to look for rooms for our trip. Which we were booking last minute anyway, with only about 6 days to plan it all.

At 10 pm the night before we were due to leave, I decided I better hurry up and get accommodations squared away. At 10:15 p.m., I found myself frantically waking up my husband.

“Babe, we’ve got a major problem. I can’t find us a room under $500 a night.”

Normally if we hold out to book our rooms we find some pretty sweet deals. Not this time.

Next thing I know my dream of visiting the Northeast during Halloween season exploded and I found myself agreeing to take a cruise.

Plan B

We had three that would work for the dates we could take:

1. Canada/New England (my first choice)
2. Bermuda (my second choice)
3. Caribbean (definitely my last choice)

The first two are among my favorite cruises to take. The other one is nice in late winter when I want to thaw out.

It’s been a hot spring, summer and fall. I’ve been desperate for sweater weather. The last thing I wanted to do was go somewhere where I’d sweat.

But, yep, that’s the one we ended up picking. Sadly, that’s the one that had the best price, making it impossible for my husband to pass up. (Basically we paid what would’ve cost us two nights in a hotel for the original trip for the whole week on the cruise.)

Not Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed

Making matters worse was a 5:45 a.m. departure time.

Here’s two fun facts you probably don’t know about me (unless you’re among my few close friends, none of whom ever read my blog):

1. I’m not much of a spontaneous person
2. I’m definitely NOT a morning person.

All of this just had me in a very foul mood. Definitely not a vacation-state-of-mind.

I was saying Boo Humbug to all things Halloween. My heart once again wasn’t in it this year. (Last year my dad died in October, so I wasn’t feeling it then either.)

The Halloween Spirit

Making matters worse, I knew how bad it was to be upset about these kind of First-World problems.

But I could not let it go…until something magical happened.

The Halloween Spirit.

Smalls

I guess it first happened when I decided, “To hell with it. I’m packing Smalls. It may not be the photo ops I’d hoped to get with him, but maybe I’ll get some good shots of him on the ship.”

That comforted me a little bit. (Which is key. Remember this part, because I’ll circle back to it.)

Anyway there I was up before the crack of dawn, walking bleary eyed through security, worrying that TSA would stop me for having a skeleton in my bag.

That was the first good surprise of the morning. All the man behind the scanner said was, “Well, that’s a first for me.”

The second good surprise came as I headed towards our gate. We passed a Southwest Airlines check-in counter festooned in seasonal spookiness.

“Oh, I’ve got to get a photo with Smalls here,” I told my husband.

Wayne groaned but waited while I fished Smalls out and set him up. Then he even took a photo of me and Smalls together at the next counter. (Which is the photo leading off this post.)

But that’s where his patience ended.

Most of the counters in the concourse were decorated. No way was he going to wait while I took photos of them all.

They were all fun, but the best was at the gate we were flying out of.

Southwest Airlines: The Most Spirited of Them All

One of the ticketing agents saw Smalls and I coming and said, “You’re supposed to leave those at home in the closet.”

Then he asked if I wanted to take a spooky selfie, and told me where to stand to get one.

Look at me laughing and smiling before the sun was even up!

It was a good start to the vacation (which ended up being a good trip).

I had forgotten about Southwest’s decorations until we arrived at the airport for our trip home.

I was delighted to arrive at our Southwest gate in Fort Lauderdale to find it festively festooned in Halloween finery too.

I’d almost packed Smalls in my luggage, but thankfully I didn’t. He would’ve missed out on more great photo ops, this time Coco the movie/Dia de Los Muertos inspired ones.

My Comfort Skeleton

A funny thing happened on the way home, though.

The ticketing agents in Fort Lauderdale saw me posing Smalls for photos with their Halloween decorations. Unlike Nashville’s agent who had seen me coming with him, FLL’s didn’t see me take him out. They only saw me putting him back in his backpack.

I heard them saying, “Wait. What’s she doing? Is that ours? Is she taking it?”

“Maybe it’s hers?”

“One of you better ask,” one of the female agents suggested.

The two guys came over and asked. I showed them photos of Smalls on vacation to prove that, yep. He’s mine.

That’s when the lady directed me to other areas of the gate I hadn’t noticed were decorated, like a Day of the Dead altar to one side, a big sugar skull behind the desk, and some other Coco-inspired decorations.

She told another ticketing agent who was laughing at me taking photos of Smalls at the altar, “That’s her comfort skeleton. She took him on her trip. Now they’re headed home.”

Grateful Dead

I love flying Southwest anyway, but flying with them at Halloween time? I’ve never done it before, but it’s even more fun.

Thank you, Southwest, for helping to salvage some of my Halloween spirit this year.

And also for giving Smalls a fun First Time Flyer experience!