“Last boarding call for Delta flight 289 at gate 14. Last call,” announced the woman at gate 14, over the Newark Airport P.A. system.



“Daddy, I’m going to sit down,” I stated. He made an incoherent noise and just kept scrolling through his emails on his blackberry. I rolled my eyes, wandered away, and took a seat on a dormant baggage carousel. I started tapping my leg nervously and I wrapped my scarf tighter as people glided in and out of the revolving doors, entering and exiting the terminal, leaving and arriving – but the someone I was seeking had not come through those doors. The thing was, my dad and I had been waiting for two hours now. The plane had arrived, but our passenger hadn’t.

My dad finally sensed my worry and looked up from his blackberry. Noting the time and the arriving passengers, he motioned for me to follow him into the American Airlines office. “Ma’am?” he asked the woman behind the counter. The woman at the counter continued to vigorously type on her keyboard. “Ma’am,” my dad repeated, this time demanding an answer.

The woman peered over her glasses. “What?”

“We’ve been waiting for two hours now, and he hasn’t arrived.”

“That’s not my problem, sir,” she said, and with that she shooed us away.

Increasingly anxious and now very annoyed, my dad picked a fight. Now if you know my dad, this is not particularly surprising. He started screaming about how there are children waiting outside, holding balloons, and crying hysterically and that he didn’t have time in his life to deal with this crap. So, since this is the United States of America, two policemen showed up and dragged my dad out of the office, and I joined the chorus of crying children.

Two hours later, our passenger finally arrived. The airline had forgotten him and eleven others in Texas. We found his name, found him in the line, laid out a blanket, and opened the cage door. A fluffy, trembling, stinky, 2-month old puppy hesitantly stepped out of what he had used as his bathroom for the last fourteen hours.

“Mickey!” I carefully picked him up and held him tightly to my chest. “You must be freezing, you poor thing!” I wrapped him in the blanket, looked into his eyes, and started bawling. I had been waiting and wishing for this moment for 10 years, and it had finally come true.

“What an adventure you must’ve had, little guy!” my dad exclaimed as the puppy’s eyes widened even bigger. So we went home and, so far, have lived happily ever after.