THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2023 49 A friendly rep got my dog confirmed, only to reroute me to the cargo line where I was called an idiot and routed back to customer service, where I was told that nothing could be done, and why wouldn’t you give up on that big rock, Sisyphus? One surly rep told me to pay out of pocket to have a private company ship the dog if I was getting tired of calling (which I was). I researched this suggestion. I emailed for quotes, and replies came back at the speed of mousetraps. One promises to put my dog in a TARDIS and wind back the aging process so that I can train her properly as a puppy. Another oozes judgment and promises. Truly, if I loved my dog, I’d pay half a car to transport her around the world, right? If I really loved her. I balk. I … like my dog. I delete the shipping quotes, but they keep coming in all the same. At two months, I am a step ahead of every question. I’m on government orders. I split the flight. The solstice isn’t for two months. I took the oath of binding and sacrificed my tokens on an altar made of discarded model airplanes, as instructed on the airline website’s sister service, Invisible Caveats. Gamma said LMN required that I check the dog out and then in again, which I couldn’t do with my short layover. I snagged tickets on an earlier flight and gave myself six hours to check the dog out and in again. Perfect—until I was told there was a threehour layover limit on checked animals in general. Then LMN said that Gamma was mistaken and that I wouldn’t have to check the dog out at all. Scrambling, I paid to switch my tickets back. Switching reset all my reservations. Gamma and LMN couldn’t decide who was actually in control of the flight until the two pilots dueled the morning of the flight, as was airline custom. Then there was the double layover rule, where a pet couldn’t have two connections in a single trip, posted on nary a website (I assume the parchment was unrolled and Terry Gilliam hovered gleefully over the fine print to locate this new pitfall). To overcome it, I overnighted in our connection city to break up the connections. I told myself it would be nothing to move half a dozen suitcases and a large dog crate. My reward would be a complimentary make-my-own-dang-waffle. All the while, the nefarious private carrier emails kept trickling in. Aren’t you tired? Aren’t you stressed? Aren’t you getting just a little bit desperate? I delete the emails. Desperate, yes. That desperate? Well … The government makes it clear this mess is mine to deal with. In the beginning, I found their fear to be amusing. We will fight wars. We will build air-conditioned spaces in the desert. We will get potable water in nonpotable places. We will untangle your visa application. But a dog? No! Now I begin to see their wisdom. Uncle Sam is cradled in Liberty’s arms, softly chanting to himself: “Codeshare splits … no double layovers … hold please … hold please … hold please …” Cue horrible guitar music. For three months, I’ve been working on putting my dog on an airplane. Three months in, and they’re wearing me down one call at a time. I now fight laughter when the rep asks if the combined weight of the dog and crate is less than a wet swan in summer. It’s not a healthy laugh either—it’s a cackling sound. I get rebuked for the sound on my 15th call when Gamma flip-flops again. They’re doing the best they can, and I really should try to be patient. I do not throw my phone off the balcony that day. Susanna, a cheerful representative who reminds me of myself before I hated everything, gets my dog confirmed for every step
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