Unbelievable

Yesterday morning...early early yesterday morning...I took Lumos (Solo/Duri) to the airport for her to begin her journey to her new home up in Oregon. I groggily arrived at Continental at a quarter after 5, parked the van, and took her traveling crate into the office and came back out to get her and her traveling papers. By the time I got back out, someone had parked to the right of me (super-close I might add) and had just opened their door into the side of my van. I was even less impressed when they promptly went to the back of their sedan...and opened their TRUNK! Filled with tiny crates all set up for traveling (little bags of food taped to the top)...and pulled out one with a puppy inside of it!

????????????????

I carried Lumos inside and set her up, much to her chagrin, in her crate and awaited my turn in line. The fellow parked next to me came in - he pulled out a little parti-dappled dachshund pup and proceeded to dress it up in a little bandana. The counter guy was talking to him as he made copies and then went out to get a cart for the folks that were ahead of me and who also had a large crate. He apparently had seen this guy on many occasions for shipping pups. They began discussing his Christmas "business" and he mentioned that it was way down.

After getting Lumos set up for her day's adventure, I got back in the van to head to work. I noted the license plate on the sedan - Oklahoma. So that meant a minimum of 2 hours away. I am left thinking, if someone constantly had puppies available to ship and could refer to it as "business", why on earth didn't they have a proper vehicle to bring their "commodity" down to the airport for shipping?! With all the pseudo-SUVs out there, they don't even need a van - use a Honda Element, or that cool HHR vehicle. Our Astro van has been a wonderful vehicle - but I would much prefer being able to toodle to work in a Mini Cooper or something else smaller and sportier instead of being in the "soccer mom" category with a minivan! So I was pretty much disgusted at the thought of this fellow hauling puppies in the trunk of his car for the rest of the day.

On a good note, Lumos' flight was uneventful and she arrived safe and sound in Portland (albeit a bit messy) and is now with her new family.