More Christmas Tour Stories

The morning of December 20th I was in the bathroom of our hotel room getting ready to leave Costa Mesa and fly to Seattle, Washington, when I heard this melodic, pleasantly loud, male operatic voice singing "O Sole Mio." The singing sounded like it was coming through the wall from what was probably the bathroom in the room next to us. My first instinct was to start singing with him since I have studied voice and performed classical songs and arias from operas before Wayne and I were married. "O Sole Mio" was one of the first songs that I sang in Italian. I stopped and thought twice when I recognized that it was Jimmy singing and thought it might embarrass him or me if I started singing with him. Now I wished that I had started singing with him. The story would be a lot funnier. Ha!

That same morning the Brothers, Band, Michelle (Jimmy's wife) and I flew from the Orange County Airport to Seattle, Washington. From there we took a connecting flight from Seattle to Spokane where the Brothers performed at the Northern Quest Casino that evening. Usually they don't perform the same day as they travel. Wayne and I had our regular 3 carry on items, coats and the computer that wasn't lost yet. I headed down the aisle to exit the plane in Seattle and Wayne grabbed the carry on suitcase that was in the overhead bin and his show clothes and followed me off of the plane.

Wayne wanted to stop at the restroom that was close to the arrival gate before heading to the gate of our connecting flight, so I stood outside reluctantly waiting for him, hoping we'd make it in time for the connecting flight. I thought that I heard over the PA system a message for Michelle Osmond to return to the gate and assumed that was it Jimmy's Michelle. Wayne came rushing out and 3 flight attendants came rushing at us. Wayne had accidently pulled the flight attendant's carry on suitcase out of the bin and attached his clothes bag to it covering the suitcase, so I didn't notice that it wasn't our carry on suitcase. They were both the same unique color - black.

The flight attendants were out of breath and one of them was really upset, then relieved when she saw Wayne and then me holding on to the handle of her suitcase. I've never seen anyone so excited to see us before. We exchanged suitcases as she commented on how funny Wayne would look in her clothes and that she didn't know what she would have done if she hadn't seen us. Our Michelle must have borrowed our carry on suitcase sometime and put her name on the tag. Another close call but we made the connecting flight on time.