Feline flight

Guess what I'm never doing again. Flying with a pet under the seat in front of me!

Egads, Internets! I just took the red-eye from SFO to BOS last night and I am now working on approximately one hour of sleep. It all started off pretty well yesterday evening when I packed up my belongings, slipped Victor Kiriakis his share of the kitty xanax and called a cab to pick us up!

Victor, who usually meows non-stop in car rides, was relatively calm, so I figured the pill was doing him some good. When we got to airport security, the kind TSA lady suggested we go to a private room so that I didn't have to squeeze Victor as I walked through the metal detector. I was totes grateful for this private screening room and Victor behaved like a champ.

While we waited for our flight, Victor mostly looked out the window and I watched him anxiously, expecting him to erupt into horrible screams at any second. Fortunately, none of that ever happened, so it may have been unnecessary to find the least-populated seating area in the entire United terminal.

We also boarded the plane with little fanfare, and Victor seemed pretty content to squish in his carrier under the seat in front of me. The plane filled up, and we were off!

Actually, we weren't off immediately. It took about 30 minutes for us to slowly make our way to the runway before we were allowed to take off. During this time, Victor was pretty quiet, but as soon as the plane started to accelerate, the meows came fast and furious! And they did. not. stop.

For the next two hours or so, Victor meowed and meowed. It wasn't to the point where it was completely irritating, but it was enough to alarm the passengers who were lucky enough to be near us. But I could tell that people were struggling to fall asleep, so I dug out the other pill and unzipped the carrier just a teensy bit.

Immediately, Victor shoved his head through the unzipped opening with all his might and I grabbed his little face. I pried his mouth open, stuck the pill at the back of his throat, and clamped his face down, forcing him to swallow his meds.

After a few more protests, the pill worked! For about 20 minutes.

With more than three hours left in the flight, Victor renewed his protests at full lung capacity and decided he also wanted to try to claw his way out of the carrier. He struggled and squirmed and scratched and howled for a good two hours, much to the dismay of my fellow passengers. And I'd run out of drugs so I was completely powerless!

I tried gently (and not-so-gently) kicking the carrier, nudging his face through the mesh opening and petting him. Nothing worked. Finally, I took my sweatshirt and wrapped it around the carrier to muffle his screams. It sort of helped, but this was no way to get at the root cause of the problem.

Finally, with 1.5 hours left in the flight, I think Victor finally fell asleep. And he remained silent for about an hour. It was bliss.

But once the captain announced we were descending, the little carrier hopped into motion and the cat started screeching. I just resigned myself to the fact that we had only 30 minutes left and tried to look helpless as people shot me dirty, dirty looks.