Forget the Runway--Foam the Terminal!
Anthrocon 2001 Con Book Version ©2001 Cashew Lou


Cashew Lou was horribly late getting to the airport. It was only half an hour to his departure time, and he liked to be there at least an hour beforehand. As a result, his fastidious brain was buzzing in a state of low-grade panic.

Charging from the curb to the terminal door, he tucked himself into one of the wedges of the revolving door...and smack-dab into the door's glass panel. His moist black nose left a little smear on the pane.

Lou rubbed his nose, noticing the 'out of order' notice on the door directly before him. Several of his fellow travelers tittered and stared at him as he backed out of the revolving door and into the terminal.

In line, a girl tugged on the skirt of the woman directly before Lou, staring up at the wolf. "Mommy? Why he bleeding?"

"Honey, don't point," the girl's mother admonished her.

Lou sniffed softly as he looked around, his embarrassment doubling. The cursory sniff told him he had bled quite a bit. Apparently the revolving door had bapped him a good one.

The Yukon wolf removed his scarf, lifted it to his muzzle, and blew. After a couple of dabs to his snout, he sniffed again. All clear. He bundled up the scarf and tucked it into the side pocket of his bag as clandestinely as he could.

The clock on the wall above the ticket counter showed that Lou's flight was to leave in eighteen minutes. Not board, but leave.

Needless to say, Lou's low-grade panic had been upgraded to first class.

Cashew's ears swiveled as a rasping squawk came out of a speaker overhead. The attendant at the counter was holding what looked like a CB radio handset.

"May I have your attention, please? Flight 906 to Philadelphia has been delayed, with an expected departure time of 10:40 AM. Members of our flight crew were detained in crosstown traffic. Thank you."

Lou couldn't help but chuckle and shake his head. All this time his mind had been cooking up worst-case scenarios. He was sorely tempted to pull a Homer Simpson and attack his brain with a Q-Tip.

Once through security and at the gate, he had to stand, since every seat in the vicinity was already taken. Lou leaned against a post, entertained by a small platoon of screaming children who apparently had no adult supervision. Somehow he knew they would be sitting within two rows of him, once on the plane.

His ticket told him his seat was 17F, a window seat. Somewhere near row ten, an elderly gentleman wrestling with an enormous bag shoved a little too hard on one corner of it, and the opposite corner swung out of the overhead compartment and struck Lou...

...squarely in the nose.

Cashew let out a yelp and covered his nose with his free paw. He could taste fresh blood with darting little flicks of his tongue.

On top of that, his seat was taken.

"Um, sir?" Lou leaned over to the young man in the window seat. "See...you are in my seat. 17F?" He held up his ticket, helpfully backing up his claim.

"Aaaaeaugh!" The young man's face seemed to turn seven shades paler. With wide, horrified eyes, he leaped up out of the seat, bashing his head on the light switches above. "Ow! Hey, look, sorry, okay? I was just sitting here, and nobody told me it was the wrong seat...." Frantically, he scrambled out of the seat, away from the tall wolf with blood dripping from his muzzle.

Lou's confusion turned to understanding when he realized how he must look. "Oh, this is just a nosebleed. It's not like I just ate a deer raw or something."

That did not help.

"Uhhhhhmmmm...yeah! Okay! Nosebleed! Here ya go!" The young gentleman spilled out into the narrow aisle, into a flustered heap at Lou's hindpaws.

"It's okay, really," Lou said softly, as comfortingly as he could muster. When the man cowered from him, the wolf shrugged a little and quietly slid into his seat.

Luckily, the flight was uneventful. Lou was eventually able to calm down his excessively nervous neighbor, and was able to remedy his own nose with a pawful of airline tissues. And miraculously, there were no screaming children.

The Yukon wolf was working himself into a positive frame of mind. He had made it, he was here; Philadelphia sprawled out just beneath him as the jet coasted in for a smooth landing.

By the time he stepped up to the doors of the hotel, there was a spring in Cashew's step. Almost cockily, he sauntered up to the registration desk. "Reservation for Cashew Lou, please?" He beamed as the clerk tapped a few keys at her computer.

"Um...sir..."

Lou blinked. "PLEASE don't tell me the reservations aren't there."

"Well, no," the clerk shifted on her feet, acting as if she was somewhat uncomfortable, "they're there...."

"So is there a problem? Is the room underwater or something?"

The registration clerk gave a nervous little giggle. "Well, Mister, um, Mister Lou, this is July 5th...." she seemed hard-pressed as to how to continue.

A tiny and very stupid voice in the back of Lou's head said, "So?! Anthrocon is always held on the weekend closest to the Fourth of July!"

Another more rational voice, silent until this moment, went to club the other voice to a pulp.

"Oh," Lou said, his shoulders slumping. "Oh. Oh, yeah."


The grey wolf stood outside the hotel, pondering his options. Surely he could find some mischief to get into between now and the con, right? This is the home of American democracy, full of history, sites to see, right?

Certainly there was a way to avoid an airport for three weeks.

That thought alone returned the spring to Cashew Lou's step as he padded out to see what he could see. He grinned, with a tiny pang of envy, as a bird flew overhead. Now that was the way to fly.