Mommy Hulk

On a recent trip to Missouri, I found myself tested to the extreme.

I was heading home to take care of my mother who had surgery. I was supposed to leave Saturday, the day of our first snow. I elected to try and get out a day earlier, hoping to escape any delays and cancellations. Did I mention I took my almost three-year-old?

We got to the airport about 11a.m. After an afternoon full of riding those flat escalators, expensive airport food, many DVD's and four stand-bys, we were finally on our way to Atlanta. We were at the airport for EIGHT hours!

It could have been much, much worse, but thankfully my daughter did really well. I musta had some good karma working for me ... until we got to our seats at the back of the plane. There was a young woman, probably early 20s, sitting in our seat. I checked our boarding pass again, and said, "excuse me I think you're in our seats."

By this time, it had REALLY been a long day. I was holding a 35 pound child, whom I'd been holding most of the day, plus about a 30 pound bag full of "traveling with kid" stuff and two coats. I was in no mood for ... anything! The woman shot me this smirky look and said, "You'll have to check with her, we traded seats." I looked at this other woman, who checked her boarding pass and started giggling annoyingly and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I made a mistake." Giggle, giggle, giggle. I looked back at the woman occupying my seat and she had the nerve to say, "There are empty seats up there, why can't you sit there?"

The blood inside my body began to boil and the transformation began. My skin started to turn green and the buttons started popping off my shirt. Arrrrrrrr! Mommy Hulk ANGRY!!! I wanted to grab that woman by her overly dark hair, yank her out of her seat and stuff her in the overhead bin!! The nerve!!! Apparently she saw the transformation beginning and finally said, "OK, I guess I'll move." Uh, yeah, you think so?

Funny thing happened while I was unloading the pack mule, a.k.a. me. I set Carys down and while I was taking my bag off my shoulder, it accidentally whacked dark haired girl, who was in my seat, across the head. My karma was back!