Explosive Felines and Sarcastic Applause

“I suppose that arming a group of cats would be an innovative way to blow up a plane.”

It was about 50 minutes into our flight when those words finally left my mouth. I had originally been stunned into total silence and retracted back into my own mind. I just kept going over what had just happened. Maybe I had imagined it?

Nope…those guns, police and threats to terminate the cats had all been very weirdly real.

Jackie had no idea why or to where I had disappeared only minutes before the flight; in the same way that all the passengers who had waited in frustration for 1 hour hadn’t either. However, none of them had any concept of the anxiety I had just been feeling in the basement of the airport before they clapped eyes on me.

I don’t know, would you have also been applauding sarcastically on the plane as I made my way to my seat as the last passenger after an hour's delay?

When the two police officers had sternly asked me to accompany them into the ‘never-seen’ of the airport I automatically got a little apprehensive. I couldn’t have envisaged, though, what was to come. The plane had started to board and Jackie had just gone to the toilet. I wasn’t even allowed to wait to tell her. What would she think when she left the bathroom and I had disappeared with the hand-luggage?

We walked through the darkened corridors behind the façade of the airport and into the basement by the hangers. As we entered the final room there was a 14 police entourage waiting for me. Amazingly, they were not actually the biggest surprise!

The four cats boxed up in the centre of their armed semi-circle was certainly the main shock. To say that I was confused and nervous doesn’t quite do it justice.

I wonder what strange situations you've found your pets in?

I was quickly placed onto a chair at the far end, right next to the open door to outside. This was northern England, remember, at 6am in November. It’s no time to be sitting around outside; believe me. Especially when they make you strip off.

“So, do you have anything else to say to why these cats are so special?”

As I sat trembling at the base of the armed horseshoe…due to fear or from the cold…or maybe both…I couldn’t help but instinctively laugh. The anxiety in an instant changed to bemusement. The problem in situations like these is that laughing is a sign of contempt, but it is hard not to at least chuckle for a second when you’re desperately trying to escape your own anxiety.

I learnt quickly that nervous laughter does not sit well during an interrogation. Before I knew it, the situation escalated and I quickly realised that I was under suspicion, but for what I had no idea.

“Whilst conducting our checks, your cats set off the 'armed' alert.”

“Whaaatt????...ummmmm…what??,” was about all I could muster at first.

“Specifically that big grey one there,” the female interrogator stated.

“Whaaat…what…MAGGIE!?!?”

Apparently I was the first person to travel across the Atlantic from Manchester with 4 cats on a plane. This could well be true, but it doesn’t make me a terrorist...an idiot, quite possibly?

Quickly she started firing all types of questions at me about my work, home life, emails, telephone messages, where we had kept the cages, etc. etc. It never seemed to end. I had thought that all had been sorted at the animal export check; I guess that was the serious calm before the storm.

Suddenly, the woman started threatening to have the bomb squad terminate the cats. Now that is a phrase that I would definitely have not guessed ever being said. It was getting serious. Meanwhile, Jackie still had no idea where I was, and the passengers were none the wiser to why their flight was so delayed.

What would you have done in my shoes (which I had been forced to remove by the way)?

I certainly hope that this bizarre experience will be the only time that I have been on my knees begging in an airport. Pleading...crying…desperate…pathetic. I was trying anything and everything to convince them that Maggie was simply a fat cat and not an explosive one.

The interrogation and anxiety continued for about half an hour. The cats looked as confused and as scared as I was. Somehow, however, after the authorities had set me up for the worst possible start to a flight ever, I managed to convince them to let the cats go.

“Relief” is not the word to describe how I felt as I put my shoes back on and made my way to the plane with all 4 cats on board as well. Maggie especially became more than simply a cat after that freezing morning. Why they couldn’t have just x-rayed her is beyond me?

It has always been interesting to think, though, that all those passengers who looked at me with such annoyance will still have no idea of the suspected exploding felines that delayed their flight.

So, I ask you this...

…think in a moment in your life when someone has annoyed you, but you've not known

the full story; contemplate for a second the unknown - what might have really

happened with that person before you got annoyed?