Know When To Fold 'Em

My boyfriend of 20 years (in some states that is considered common law marriage though we choose to stay unmarried but live together like we are)looks like Kenny Rogers. Well, he did before Kenny had some unfortunate plastic surgery.
I was visiting my daughter in Portland, Oregon again, the first time I had gone out by myself and there was a thrift store a couple blocks from her house that I liked the looks of while window shopping. There was a cardboard standup of none other than Kenny Rogers..big as life. I had to go in. I asked the man behind the cash register how much he would sell Kenny for. He said $4.00. Wow, I said I can't pass that up but how will I get him home to Indiana? He said it will cost you more than $4.00 to ship it and it does fold up so I'll bet you can take him on the plane. I thought about it and decided yes, I could do that. I have done strange things like that before! So the day of departure came and we dragged my suitcase down 4 flights of stairs at 5am along with Kenny under my arm. After the tearful good-bye and a pat on Kenny's head I presented myself and luggage to the curb side check out. The man there looked at my ticket and asked "Is it just you and Kenny today?" I said yes, do you think I will have trouble on the plane and he said No, I think he'll go in the overhead bin. So I was happy and relieved. So up the escalator Kenny and I went receiving lots of long loving looks and chuckling. We got to the inspection gate and Kenny had to stand up and go through on his own..he was wanded but thank goodness they didn't have him take off his shoes! I made it through with out setting off any alarms for once and so did Kenny. While walking to our gate a woman observed "Either you like Kenny Rogers or you like cardboard." We got to our gate and sat down behind a father and daughter. The daughter looked behind at us and said to her dad "Kenny Rogers is sitting behind you, Dad. He looked and chuckled and wondered if he would sing to us on the plane. We had our ticket scanned and nothing more was said. Great. We entered the packed plane and I thought "where am I going to put Kenny?" A girl standing behind me noticed an empty bin..She said "look this one is empty, just put him in and we'll close it and everyone will think its full!" Brilliant girl! Don't think I even saw her face. So Easy Peasy I thought..this is just great!
We flew from Portland to Cincinnati for our connecting flight and again we got loving and longing(as I like to think of it) glances as we were waiting for our plane. I kept waiting to hear them call our row and then noticed that Kenny and I were the only ones left at the gate. We hurried up to the desk and they said, Oh my they are almost boarded! Did I have a brain fade thinking about Kenny?....It was a very small plane..2 seats on each side of the aisle--but the flight attendant said nothing about Kenny so in we went and sat down next to a very large black man. I smiled at him and thought to myself, if I were a casting agent I would pick this man over all others to play Big Sam in Gone With The Wind! Kenny wouldn't fit in the bin on that plane..hardly had a bin, so I put folded up Kenny in front of my knees. His arm stuck out a little into the aisle but not more than a big fat man's arm several rows ahead of us. "Big Sam" looked at Kenny and then at me and asked.."is he going to fly with us like that?" And I said "yes, it will be fine..he's not in the way." The flight attendant starting going down the short aisle and gasped, "Oh, Kenny can't ride that way!" I said that I didn't know what else to do with him. She tried him behind her seat. Nope, didn't fit. Tried him in the front of the plane behind that flight attendant's seat. Nope that didn't work either. Tried him several places and by this time we are 20 minutes past take-off all because we can't find Kenny a seat. I was getting nervous~I thought oh, my gosh people are going to start yelling at me and they are going to throw poor $4.00 Kenny off the plane! Instead, people started singing Kenny Rogers songs~"Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em", "Lady" and several others. It was hysterical. Finally the attendant came back and she said, the Pilot says "Kenny can fly jump seat behind me if he'll sing me a song." So off Kenny went to help fly the plane home and every one clapped. When we arrived home Kenny and I were walking to the luggage carousel again getting the loving longing looks and Michael was there to greet us. He said "my gosh, what have you done? Where did you get Kenny? This is so typical of you, Kim!" He loved it! Now Kenny goes to parties and drinks beer with the guys and people get their picture taken with him. Funny thing about that is...the real people look more cardboard than Kenny!