The Bird

Eighteen years ago, the company that I worked for won a prestigious vendor award from one of our largest customers. The sales manager told me that I would be flying to Chicago, with him, to attend the award ceremony and accept the award; we would be gone for two days.  He also told me that I would have to do ‘carry on’ luggage because he did not check his bags and neither would I. Crap! I did not travel much and two days with only carry on luggage was pretty much out of my ‘style’ and comfort zone. I thought about it for 24 hours and advised him that I would do the carry on luggage but I would be wearing four layers of clothing, which included my gown and robe, and my hair would be in curlers when we boarded the plane. He gave me on of those ‘deer in headlights’ looks, but did not say anything.

Being the color coordinated fashion diva that I was, I had a problem; shoes. We were going to make a few sales calls and to make a good first impression I would need heels that perfectly matched my dress. For later in the day, when my feet began to hurt, I would need a lower stacked heel, color coordinated, for when the first impression reached more of a screw-this-my-feet-hurt-and-you-are-not-worth-this-pain level. In the case of sightseeing I would need a pair of perfectly coordinated flats. Two days would require six pair of shoes, two changes of clothing, nightgown and robe, hair curlers and various beauty paraphernalia. Crap.

I went shopping and bought a hanging suit bag, with a narrow flat bottom, and practiced packing for three days. I discovered that if I carefully put one shoe inside another I could place my hair curlers in the last shoe and stagger the shoes across the bottom of the bag. I could then roll my underwear, pantyhose and breakable beauty paraphernalia in my gown and robe and place this on top of the shoes. On top of the robe and gown I could place my remaining beauty supplies, stored in several gallon zip-lock freezer bags, a book, a few snacks, and have just enough room for my change of clothes if I did not place them on hangers. I could press any wrinkles out in my hotel room. The only problem was that this carry on weighed close to 80 pounds, but it was still a hanging bag, and could be placed in the enclosure for hanging bags, just inside the airplane door, as I boarded.

I dragged that bag, carefully because it did not have wheels, through DFW to my boarding gate. I could not find my sales manager and once the plane took off I assumed he had missed the plane. Dammit! I could have checked a suitcase!  Upon arrival in Chicago, a rep office member met me at the arrival gate and informed me that the sales manager had suddenly changed his flight to the night before. Son of a…! He must have really thought I was serious about the four layers of clothes and wearing my hair curlers. I could have checked a suitcase! I was a little pissed, but on the bright side, I had successfully packed everything I needed in a hanging bag and still had half an inch of room to spare!

We went to the awards dinner on our second evening in Chicago, and accepted the award which was a statue of an eagle, wings extended, mounted on a large wooden base. I was very proud of it until I was told I would have to pack it in my carry on for my return trip the next morning. The sales manager was going to stay another day and make a few additional sales calls. Well, hell! I could have checked TWO suitcases!  I spent that night packing, and repacking, that hanging bag from hell, until I could get that ugly trophy situated in a manner that it would not break a wing. I ended up with one pair of shoes in my purse and I wore my gown under my dress.

When the eagle, and I, landed at DFW, I drove directly to the office to drop it off. When I pulled it out of my bag it was wearing a pair of my underwear over its head with the wings sticking out of the leg holes. I almost left the underwear on it when I placed it on a cabinet where it would immediately be seen as our co-workers arrived to work. Instead, I rubbed that pair of two day old underwear all over that damned eagle so that it would be nice and shiny when the sales manager showed it off. 

I guess you can say, in my own personal way, I gave the bird to the sales manager.