The story began as most crazy, hair-raising stories begin, with a wedding.
My sister met her bashert, b”H, and was engaged to be
married in Atlanta Georgia, on July Fourth weekend, 2020. As Georgia was her chassan’s home state, and the first
state to open up restrictions on in-person events for over 10 people, it seemed
the obvious choice after months of debate about where to hold the simcha. When
we were looking up flights, we found that, due to the dearth of flights during
the heart of the Covid-19 pandemic, prices were sky high. We had a choice
between Spirit, which is less reliable and has more stopovers, or Southwest,
with its steep price. After much debate, we decided on Southwest Airlines and
booked the tickets.
Preparing for a
wedding during a pandemic can only be described as absurd. Gown stores and gemachs were officially closed (but open
if you went at a specific time for a personal appointment with your “secret
password”). Sheitel appointments
started off on Zoom and progressed to the lawn of the sheitelmacher with masks in a socially distant manner. Awkward
invitations were sent out which stated the date and time of the simcha but had
an email address to log into Zoom just in case, followed by sympathies that we
cannot all celebrate in person together. Then there were the people who found
out you were traveling for a wedding and proceeded to ask questions that made
you wish you hadn’t opened your big masked mouth.
*
* *
The day finally arrived, and we stuffed
our van with everything but the kitchen sink in preparation for my one-and-only
little sister’s big day. The Shabbos kallah weekend for our immediate family
was hosted in a local hotel and was beautiful. The wedding on Sunday was
probably the first in-person wedding held since COVID had begun. It was a
beautiful wedding with many fewer people than a traditional one, but the love
and closeness was felt by all who attended. The hors d’oeuvres served by masked and gloved waiters in
personalized monogrammed boxes and the chef handing out the bedeken fare behind a plexiglass barrier
were sights to behold. There were monogrammed masks, and monogrammed personal
desserts. The wedding was certainly different but nonetheless absolutely
amazing.
On Monday morning, the day after, we packed all our
belongings and set out for the airport: Luggage one? Check. Luggage two? Check.
A million grocery bags of snacks and treats because if the kids get hungry, it
would mean bad news for everyone on the flight? Check. Sheitel box with two very expensive wigs inside pinned to the same
head? Check.
We were on our way.
The trouble began when we bypassed the lengthy line of
passengers waiting to be scanned in for security. My husband and I smirked at
our luck at bypassing everyone because we were TSA PreCheck approved. When the
security agent took my boarding pass, he said the most distressing four words I
could have heard at the moment, “You don’t have PreCheck.”
“Um, yes, I do.” I retorted. I hadn’t wasted a whole day
gathering government documents for nothing. I hadn’t wasted a whole other day
trying to find the makeshift office located in a trailer in some parking lot
whose government worker eventually declared that I was not a threat to national
security, for nothing. I most certainly do
have TSA PreCheck.
I have the approval email; but apparently approval emails
don’t matter. My efforts to explain were for naught. The gate agent had
forgotten to put a PreCheck label on my boarding pass so I had to be separated
from my family and wait on the main security line. Waiting alone got me
thinking: I had not eaten or drank all morning, and had my water in the
stroller with the rest of the fam. There goes that. It would be thrown out as
fast as you could say the words “explosive material.
When we finally all reunited at the gate, my first course
of action was to take stock of what we had. Carry-ons? Check. Sheitel box?
Check. Water?
I needed water. I was parched.
Leaving the hubby and kids yet again, I embarked on the
ominous journey to find bottled water, hoping the kids wouldn’t find a way to
jump onto the tarmac in the meantime. At first I thought about a
water-fountain, but the water fountains were closed due to COVID. After walking
a while, an open cafe past security was finally found. Reaching the
refrigerator compartment I was left in shock to see there was no bottled water
left. Apparently, everybody had the same idea, so, taking a Diet Coke in hand,
I got on line. Luck had it that I had to spend another five minutes behind a
woman ordering a long winded
half-caf-decaf-nonfat-triple-shot-caramel-vanilla-latte-with-hazelnut-syrup-instead-of-vanilla.
It took minutes for the barista to repeat it back and get her drink right. In
an effort to cut it short, I counted out the exact change needed to pay for my
Coke, but again luck was not on my side.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we do not accept cash due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. Credit card only.” I was in a twist tighter and messier than
a fifth grader’s messy bun.
“Okay,” I obliged, and placed my card in the reader, got
my receipt, (as if the receipt did not carry the same germs my cash did) and
was on my way back to the gate.
By the time our gate came to my line of vision, my husband
and the kids were already waiting to board the plane, and I immediately
regretted my detour. But, baruch Hashem, we
safely and calmly boarded the plane and made it to Baltimore in record time.
* * *
As
soon as the plane landed, the sound of seatbelts unbuckling struck like freshly
popping popcorn. The first thing I did was open the overhead compartment and
was shocked to find my sheitel box
missing. Everything except the sheitel
box was on the plane. In the hullabaloo of the water escapade, I had forgotten
my wig box at the gate. I laughed as I cried, thinking about the horror on
someone’s face when they found a large strange sized box in Atlanta airport
Gate C-11. Luck would have it that a child would open it to find a styrofoam
head covered in human silky hair, the price of which combined could buy dozens
of plane fares to Florida.
My husband and kids were very sympathetic but no one but a
frum woman can understand the true
scope of the loss of two wigs, one of
which was just bought for a simcha after 10 years. No words. In my mind, I was
already sitting shiva for the wigs,
Shprintzy and Yenti. (When you pay so much for something, you give it a name.
Or at least, I do.)
On the car ride home I started googling options for
salvaging the sheitels. The Atlanta
airport’s phone number came up with a list of hundreds of departments, but I
started with the lost and found for obvious reasons. After telling my sob story
to the unsympathetic man at the other end of the line, he had only bad news to
relay.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, lady. But if your name is not
on the bag, and you left it at the gate, it will go to security.”
“Okay…but then it will go to the lost and found, right?” I
replied optimistically.
“Most likely scenario is security will blow it up as it is
considered a mysterious package which is deemed dangerous,” responded the stoic
airport security representative.
As my mouth dropped to the floor, I imagined two wigs
being blown up, not by a sheitelmacher
but by airport security. Who needs a blow-dryer? Wigs reduced to nothing but
fire and ashes, putting the damage of hair straighteners to shame. I decided at
this point to message my family WhatsApp chat for ideas. Immediately my father,
an avid traveler and Southwest Airlines Preferred member, was on the case. This
is the point where the hashgacha pratis of
our decision to go with Southwest shows its colors.
With my father’s preferred frequent flyer status, passion,
and persistence, he somehow reached a head honcho at the airline and told her
the tale of the missing wigs. The woman told my father he would get a call if
they were found at the gate. Sure enough, a few minutes later he received a
call from this woman. “We have your daughter’s weaves,” she said. My father was
ecstatic to receive this news, however he found it strange that the woman
called the wigs “weaves.” Cautiously optimistic, he called to relay the news.
My heart that had fallen rose back up to my chest in gratitude to my father and
Hashem for orchestrating this wig-saving mission.
Alas, my excitement was short-lived. I got a call a few
minutes later from my mother. “I’m so sorry, Michelle.” She continued, “But the
lady called back and said that it was actually weaves that had been found at
gate C-11, some other lady’s weaves. They called to ask if your name is
Shaniqua Jones, because she had come to the lost and found looking for her lost
weaves.” In a hair-raising twist of fate, two women had left fake hair at gate
C-11 in Atlanta airport, and only Shaniqua Jones’s were found. My stomach was
in a knot.
It was only about 10 minutes later, though, that I got the
ecstatic call from my mother. “They
have your wig box!” she said. “When Shaniqua Jones picked up her weaves, she
handed them your wig box, which she had taken instead! The woman Dad spoke to
is holding the wig box in her personal office, and will keep it for us until we
get to the airport later today!” It was a nes.
I stood shocked, grateful, and absolutely dumbfounded
about the hashgacha pratis involved
in this tale. Shprintzy and Yenti were dropped off in their home, my sheitel box, by my parents later that
night. Thanks to Shaniqua Jones, the weaves, Southwest Airlines, and my
parents, the wigs and I were finally reunited. If I learned one thing from the
saga it is this: never ever under any
circumstance bring your wigs as a carry-on.
