It was the summer of 1990, and for whatever reason Tam's best friend Tam (no, that's not a typo or a stutter!) decided to give us her pair of pet chinchillas. No problem, we figure. Anchorage Tam was getting married, and we were going to be flying out for her wedding. We could just bring them on the plane with us, right? Uh, guess again. We talked to the airlines, and they didn't seem to know what to do with us. We didn't want to check them in baggage; we wanted to bring them as carry-on. Most airlines had policies regarding carry-on dogs and cats: no more than one per flight, and they had to fit in a carrier under the seat. Problem was, the airline bueaucrats couldn't quite seem to figure out how to fit this policy to chinchillas... we'd be bringing two, so that would violate the one-per-flight rule, but the pair fits comfortably in a cat-sized cage, so they'd take up no more space than one. We tried to tell them how small they were without breathing the word "rodent", but to no avail. In the end, since the trip promised to be a handful without the added baggage, we decided not to try.

It was just as well, really... the Alaska trip was fun, but everyone who was crashing at Tam's house got royally sick. Getting back home was a nightmare; Boston Tam was SOOOO sick she could barely walk, leaving yours truly to haul all the luggage. The airline's computer was down, and they were processing checkins by hand. The line was a mile long, and although we had called ahead for a wheelchair for Tam none were in sight and nobody from the airline was free to assist us. Finally we straightened that out and (barely) made our flight, but we did not need the added burden of having the chinches to deal with as well.

So we looked into various options to have the furballs shipped to us. Shipping them via airline package service would have been close to $100, and we wanted to see what else was possible. The regular shipping companies (FedEx, UPS, Airborne) either wouldn't touch it at all or would only do it if you were a zoo or a research lab (These days, after The Hot Zone I don't know if they'd even touch that anymore!). So we were stuck with the airlines. Make that airline. Checking them in the hold is bad enough; checking them on a connecting flight would be even worse. Turns out United had the only nonstop from Anchorage to Boston. Okay, fine. We make the arrangements, Tam ships them out, and tells us what flight they're supposed to arrive on. We get to the airport and find the baggage claim area for the flight. We watch bags come around the carousel; no chinches. We watch a couple of animal cages come in, but still no chinches. The carousel stops. Still no chinches. Has the airline lost our bag? We find someone official-looking and inquire. No, he says, unaccompanied animals are sent to the freight terminal, which is in a completely separate building. He tells us how to get there, which involves going down a dirt service road festooned with signs telling us we weren't supposed to be there... There was no sign saying "Beware of the Leopard", but there was a puma involved. More on that in a minute.

Finally, we find the building. It is a small, ramshackle structure that would be more at home on a grass airstrip than at a major international airport. We go in and claim the chinches, who seem none the worse for their adventure. As we're chatting with the guy he says that there are some kinds of animals you can ship and some you can't. One time, for some reason, somebody shipped a puma (nice kitty!) from L.A. to Boston via United air freight. Can't do that, it's against the rules, and he doesn't want this kitty on his hands when the sedatives wear off. He sends it back on the next flight.

The only thing we were wondering was: what happened when the sedatives wore off in the middle of the return flight? And where was the owner of puss-in-size-12-boots? I could just imagine the puma arriving in La-la-land just as the owner touches down in Boston, and the poor air-freight guy in L.A. has to figure out what to do with this upset, hungry kitty until the owner arrives...