we should have taken the pre-flight terrential rainstorm as a sign. an omen of the dark gloom to come. instead, all it did was make the husband have to pee.

we got on the plane. so far, so good. flight was on time. kids were behaving.
we got a kick out of the man who was upset that they didn't honor his upgrade even though it was an all economy flight.
we got a giggle out of the two chinese boys who were flying for the first time. and even got a chuckle when one of them asked for a dvd player.

then things started to turn ugly.

"we are sorry for the delay folks. the plane is too heavy."
what. the. fuck.
20 minutes later.
"we are still trying to figure out what to do. we let too much luggage on board."
i'll ask again. what. the. fuck.
20 minutes later.
"okay, we've figured it out. we took some random baggage off the plane. we have no idea whose stuff it is. but now the plane is light enough to fly and we will send the random bags on the next flight to toronto. in the morning."
i looked at the husband. he looked at me.
we just knew.

about 10 minutes before we landed they called the 7 people who had bags taken off the plane.
drumroll please.
martell, naturally.
but, they didn't know which bags or how many.
so, we would have to wait...at midnight...with our 3 kids...until all the bags came off to see which ones didn't get here. then we'd have to fill out a report.
christ almighty.
what a way to end a really, really good vacation.

so, we were missing 2 things in the end. the box with the husband's smoker in it. don't ask. and...get this...they are so very smart at air canada....our car seat. our freakin' carseat. who was thinking..."oh yes, we need to take something off. let's take off this person's carseat, that weighs exactly nothing and this way, they'll have no way to get home from the airport. on new years day at mighnight. yes, that makes perfect sense!" genius, i tell you.

they will be getting an awfully nice letter from us, i can assure you.
oh, and we still don't have our two bags yet.