Implausibly Zigzag

Chapter 1
Chapter 1

-Hannah -

I just made it to the airport termininal in time, after a brief run in with a bitchy ticket lady, we had a few words and I got my boarding pass and ran to the gate. A little bit winded, I walked down the aisle in the airplane, watching people bump their heads all the way to their seats, I couldn’t help but to think of how being a little person wasn’t all that bad. Now if I had to drag my luggage through here with me and reach the overhead bin to put it away... well that would have been a different story.

You see, I have a disease called Sparley’s Syndrome**. It results in a number of problems, not the least obvious is my short stature. I am 45 inches tall and weight 50 pounds. Because of my size, this is the first trip I have ever been able to take by myself. I had traveled before, but only with my mother. This time, I was going to stay with my cousin in the country. She is my age, and lives in Oklahoma... Hicksville. I haven’t seen her since we were little kids, but we have been pen pals forever. This was my chance to prove that I too could be a little people in the big world. I am a pretty good natured person, but I get kinda cranky about it when people give me a hard time about my size, which is how I got into it with the ticket lady. She made some about how cute I was... I was pretty mean to her, and she was probably just trying to be nice. Well, while I was treating her like dirt, she wasn’t just holding just my boarding pass, I didn’t know at the time just quite how much of my fate she held in her long painted nailed typing fingers... until I saw the notice on my boarding pass.

[img]http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o114/jamiemorrispb/3.jpg[/img]

*********CHILD UNDER 5**********

********TRAVELING ALONE********

******SPECIAL ASSISTANCE******

-Discruntled-

Maggie dunlap had been working for Delta airlines for 7 months... her manager Richard had made several passes on her and they had actually been on one date before she realized that she wasn’t quite into him. After she blew him off for the third time, she started getting the crapy shifts, explaining why she was finishing a shift at 5:30 in the morning. This was a week running on the midnight shift, with the bitchiest customers, doing a job that the brand new girls could have been doing. After having been promised a promotion, only to watch Richard give it to Jacqualin... can you believe it, Jacqualin. She cant even count, let alone manage all the girls at the counter. Well that was the last straw, after haveing been on her shift for almost 6 hours Maggie wasn’t going to take any more shit from this place...

-Maggie-

I made the last call for flight 11 from Boston to OKC when up comes running a young mother and what I thought were her two adorable little girls, each pulling matching wheelie bags. One was in overalls, and the other was in khaki pants and a button down shirt and jacket that was almost like a cute little pants suit.

Well the mother gave me two tickets and dropped off her luggage and tags. That’s when I figured out that the other little girl wasn’t with her. The woman was pretty nice so I checked her in, gave her boarding passes and she was on her way. Then the little bitch comes up to the counter. All I did was say “hi sweetie did you loose you mom?” The next thing I know she is throws her ticket and an ID card up on my counter that says she is 18 years old. I said, “I’m sorry mam, I didn’t realize you were a midget.” and she got just irate on me.

Apparently, “midget” is like a bad word or something. How was I supposed to know, I never knew any Midgets... or whatever they are supposed to be called. I tried to apologies, she just yelled at me that she doesn’t need someone like me giving her a hard time, and I should just give her the damn boarding pass so she can make it on the plane. I don’t know what she meant by “someone like me”, but by that point it was on... I made a little notation in the computer and held up the boarding pass.

The little bitch just snatched it out of my hand and went running for the gate. I probably shouldn’t have messed with the poor lady and her daughter, they seemed nice, but after the “midget girl” left, I just might have accidentally switched the little girl’s luggage tags. I figured that the “real” little girl might have to wear grown up clothes and probably wouldn’t care, now little miss bitchy on the other hand probably wouldn’t be nearly as comfortable on her trip dressed in underoos and overalls. That will teacher her to be nice when people are trying to being nice to her. Hmm... and she seems to have left her ID here when she took off in such a haste. I will file this right here where someone can find it for her if she calls back for it... in the TRASH CAN.

Note: On November 12th, gate 12 had the worst quality control rating in the histry of the Boston airport. More luggage went more different places (other than where it should have gone) than any other day in years. Coincidentally Maggie Dunlap never came into work there again.

**Sparley’s Syndrome, first diagnosed by Dr. Antone Sparley in 1982, a disorder found only in girls, is caused by a genetic mutation during fetal development and occurs in 1 out of every 2,500,000 female births. Individuals with Sparley’s Syndrome have unusually short stature on average in the 1% height weight percentile range. These people were first thought to have a variation of the the genetic disorder known as Turners syndrome. Like Turner’s Syndrome, girls with Sparley’s have normal female sexual characteristics which are present but suffer from arrested development resulting from gross hormone deficiency. These usually, but not always include an absence of the estrogen found in pubescent females in amounts necessary for the growth of pubic hair, widening the pelvis and increasing the amount of body fat in hips, thighs, buttocks, and breasts. Unlike Turners however, individuals with Sparleys suffer adverse reactions from all known growth hormone therapy. People with Sparley’s syndrome also lack the webbed neck, and drooping eyelids common with Turner’s. Other symptoms of Sparley’s Syndrome include osteoporosis which can sometimes lead to scoliosis as a result of the hormone deficiency, the absence of menstrual period, and sexual sterility. Individuals with Sparleys are usually caracterized by soft, round facial features. This childlike appearance, coupled with their shortened stature can lead to some psychological dificulties when relating to other members of society in their age group.