Did He Just Call Me Fat?

Kate and I left Antigua as the sun was coming up and took a 45 minute shuttle ride to the airport in Guatemala City. Upon check-in the "trainee" for TACA Airlines told us "there isn't room on the plane, so you'll have to take a later flight." Kate pointed out that his logic sucked since we had paid full fare and had arrived in plenty of time. His response was classic: "Oh, there are seats, there's just too much weight for the plane." A number of comments, from "What weight problem? You think I have a weight problem with this girlish figure?" to "Fine, where's the nearest airport bar?" went racing through my mind. As I was attempting to translate "girlish figure" into Spanish, Kate convinced the guy to look harder and twenty minutes later, we had one seat ... yup you read that right, one seat. And not the 'she-can -sit-on -your-lap -for-the -hour-flight' kind, no no no. This was the 'just-send -your-wife-on -a-different -flight-and -hope-that -by-the-time -you-get -there-she -hasn't-been -kidnapped' kind. We were also told to proceed to the gate so the flight staff could try to find a second seat... at first I thought this was an excuse to get rid of us. 5-miles later...I figured out he was just counting on passengers sweating off enough water weight that the airline could squeeze one more person on.

The gate staff was a little more helpful ...sort of. After letting everyone else onto the plane, they brought us up to the podium to decide our fate (in actuality, they never asked us to come up, and they probably would have liked if we'd just sat there). After going through the ticket for the passengers already on the plane (multiple times), they apparently came up with a different number and decided we could have an extra seat. The gate attendant, a bowling ball of a man, escorted us to the plane. I was so stoked that both Kate and I were getting on the plane, that I actually hugged that man...yup, right there on the tarmac. Twenty minutes later we were soaring over the jungles of Guatemala on our way to the Mayan ruins of Tikal.

By the way, if you ever have a chance to hug the gate attendant at a regional airline while in a third world country...don't.