O'Hare Finally Delivers Something on Time, and It Was a Kitten

O'Hare International Airport, a place where flights go to reconsider their choices, has finally produced something that arrived exactly when it was needed. It had whiskers, weighed less than a boarding pass, and flew for $150, which is the first airline fee in history that came with a purr.

Virgil Wiebe, a St. Paul man coming home from a conference in New York, sat on the tarmac so long that he missed his connection, which at O'Hare is not an incident but a sacrament. His rebooked flight the next day was also delayed, because Chicago believes in second chances as long as they're late too.

So he walked to the end of Terminal 1, found a little garden with a dog run, and lit a Macanudo cigar. There were no dogs. There never are when you need a witness.

Then a three-week-old orange kitten burst out of the shrubbery like a passenger who has been on standby since Labor Day. "This little guy just charged up to me, like climbed on my foot," Wiebe said. "What are you supposed to do when a kitten kind of attacks you?" Surrender, obviously. Nobody has ever won a negotiation with a kitten, and the kitten has never once lost one.

He texted pictures home. His wife wrote back, "Can you bring him home?" It was shorter than any gate announcement in the building and the only one with a clear destination.

Staff confirmed no one had reported a missing pet, making the kitten the first item at O'Hare that nobody wanted back. "The TSA agent had no idea what to do, said they never seen a stray at the airport," Wiebe said. The TSA can find a 3.5-ounce shampoo inside a sock inside a boot. It has no protocol for a passenger with no ID, no bag and no intention of taking its shoes off, mostly because it has four of them.

They did offer one useful tip: "you're gonna need a kennel." United had just given away its loaner kennel, because the one thing an airline had in stock was, naturally, already gone. So his daughter back in St. Paul found a Petco and had DoorDash bring a kennel, a kitty bottle and kitty formula to the world's busiest airport. Somewhere a pilot is still waiting on his sandwich.

Wiebe paid $150 for the cat's ticket "and that was it." No seat selection fee, no carry-on fee, no surcharge for being smaller than the armrest. The kitten spent less time at O'Hare than its owner and still accomplished more.

He named it Macanudo O'Hare, after the cigar and the airport, or Harry for short. It is the first cigar break in medical history to produce something healthy, and the only O'Hare souvenir that isn't a $28 hoodie.

Harry has finished a three-week quarantine and is meeting his new siblings, Lobster Tail and Sweet Corn, so the household now sounds like a seafood boil with opinions. "He has a motor for a purr," Wiebe said, making Harry the only engine at O'Hare that started on the first try.

"Who knows where Harry came from, but now he's ours," Wiebe said. He missed two flights and gained one cat. At O'Hare, that counts as an on-time arrival.