A Ruckus Beginning

I had been calm and unhurried in the preparation for this trip to France. Until the day of departure. I had arranged for an airport limo to pick us up at 3:30 to take us to the airport. At noon, The Boy gave me a full load of dirty laundry. "I need this done," he said, "I don't have any clean shirts, underwear or socks."

I put the laundry in the washing machine. To my surprise, half of load belongs to The Exchange. Once done, I split the wet clothes into small loads to speed up the drying. At 2:45, I still had wet clothes. I put half into our dryer, half into a basket and went outside. I saw my neighbour mowing his lawn, so I asked if he could dry the clothes in the basket for us. He took the laundry.

I went back into the house to see how The Boy's packing was coming along. His suitcase was in his room, wide open, with nothing inside. I screamed. "We are leaving in 45 minutes and you have packed nothing. Nothing."

Meanwhile, Butterfly Boy arrived. The Exchange was watching something on the computer in his room. He offered to help The Boy pack. I paced the house muttering, Stay calm, stay calm.

At 3:25, The Boy went to our neighbour's to retrieve the laundry. The clothes was still damp. The Boy and The Exchange packed their damp things into their suitcases.

At 3:30, the limo arrived. I said, Give us 5 minutes. The driver said, I have another pick up at 4:35.

As we left the house and I was locking the door, I said to The Boy, "You have your passport?" He looked at me and ran back inside to find it. Finally, at 3:45, we were off.

At the airport, going through the security check, the boys emptied their pockets and took off their belts. They all cleared security with no problem. I thought, "Uh oh, I am going to have a problem."

Sure enough, when I went through the metal detector, the alarm went off. A guard on the other side wanded me. He ran the wand across my waist several times but could not detect where the metal was on my body. I moved his wand to my midsection and said, "Here's what's set off the alarm."

He said, "Is it a belt?"

"No, I am wearing a corset," I whispered.

"You will have to be frisked."

"What, you've never been fat and needed to look good?"

A woman took me aside. I said, "I'm wearing a corset. The metal hooks set off the alarm."

"You want me to check you in private?"

"No. You just need to know what you are looking for."

She frisked me with her hands and ran her fingers along my waist inside my pants. She said, "The corset looks good. It looks very natural."

"Thanks, then it's worth this embarrassment. But I don't want my boys to know my underwear set off the alarm."

She waved me off laughing.

We had an uneventful flight. When we arrived in Paris, The Exchange was burning with a fever. "I am sick," he said.

We waited for our luggage to come down the luggage chute. When I got mine, I gave The Exchange two Tylenols and two Advils. But we took a long time to leave the airport. Butterfly Boy's luggage never showed up. In the end, we had to file a lost luggage report. He is all worried about it. He had gone shopping in Buffalo on the weekend and bought new clothes. He wanted to look sharp for France. Now he will be wearing borrowed clothes. From The Boy at that.

The Man met us in the waiting area of the airport. We took a bus that took us through Paris, then a cab to our apartment. The apartment is in the 15th arrondisement, a ten-minute walk from the Eiffle Tower. Butterfly Boy was all ajitter as we passed the foot of the tower. This is his first time in Europe.

The apartment is small, but clean and nicely kept. It sits across a parkette with a playground where old men in suits play boule. The apartment has a double-bed in the bedroom and a pull-out coach in the living room. There is a small kitchenette and a small bathroom. The boys cleaned up and went to sleep. The Boy and Butterfly Boy shared the coach. The Exchange took the bed. I couldn't sleep. So The Man and I went out for a walk and to have lunch. Ooh everything is expensive here.

I notice all the women, young and old, casually dressed or not, are all very stylish. Even the little kids crying in the playground are stylishly coutured.

Then fatigue hit me. I went back to the apartment and crawled into bed with The Exchange. Under separate blankets of course. I slept for two hours. The boys, including The Exchange, never knew how I bunked. They were all asleep. Only The Man knew.

By 6 pm, I had to wake them. They were supposed to go to a rock concert. The Exchange was too sick to go. He gave the boys directions to the venue. The Man wrote down the address of our apartment and his new cell number in France. Now the boys are off on their own to negotiate their way through the Metro. They are on their first grand adventure in the streets of Paris.