Tiger Air-WEIGHS

Obviously, Tiger Airways knew that our return trip back to the States would be rather uneventful, so they made sure to start us off with a good story to tell. Now, you're probably all thinking, "What is Tiger Airways?" Well, let's just say, that is a GREAT question and one that should have been our first red flag!
Tiger Airways is a tiny budget airline based out of Singapore that doesn't necessarily have the best flying record. But, since we're brave, experienced travelers and extremely cheap, when booking our flight from Jakarta to Singapore, we figured we could take the risk and only spend $25/each, as opposed to feeling safe and spend $50. We're here to tell about it, so no use calling us foolish. :) With that $25, though, after deliberating with mom and dad, we also went ahead and paid $20 extra for a 15 kg allowance fee. I say deliberated because mom assured me that we wouldn't need even that much extra weight because they could bring back 4 suitcases free and would bring all our stuff, etc, etc. They also assured us that since we both were allowed a free carry-on (up to 7 kg according to the website, but again, mom and dad promised they wouldn't even weigh them!), we would have plenty of space. Using my better judgment, I went ahead and bought the 15 kg anyway.
So, we arrived at the airport at 5:38 pm (thanks to our driver who interprets our requests to drive fast or slow VERY literally!) and were supposed to check-in at 5:40. It's a good thing we got there when we did, because we ended up needing all the time we had! We walked into the terminal and past a couple of long lines (for other, safer airlines!) to the Tiger desk, where only 2 people were waiting to be helped. Red Flag #2. We quickly got up to the desk and put our one rolling duffel bag up on the scale... 30 kg. Uh-oh. Then, the man looked over and saw Molly's rolling suitcase and said, "Is that your carry-on? It needs to be weighed too." 15 more kg. "That can't be a carry-on, you have to pay for that." Add mine in and we're sitting at a whopping 60 kg total and zero carry-ons. By now another employee had joined the first one, and between the two of them, they did some quick calculations and kindly smiled up at us and in the calmest of voices said, "You owe $360 US Dollars."
Ok. Hold the phone. WHAT????????????? First of all, why the HECK are you charging us in USD when you are based out of Indonesia? Secondly, our total ticket cost was $50 for two people, OBVIOUSLY we're not loaded or big spenders! Additionally, the total value of everything in all three of our suitcases combined (clothes, coffee, souvenirs, etc) was probably around $200.. if that. He went on to explain that we could purchase another 'packet' (aka 15 kg) for $24, and then after those 30 kg, EACH kg would cost $15, hence $360. Without skipping a beat, I looked at the man and said, "We're not paying that. We'll be right back."
We grabbed our suitcases, walked 5 feet away to the edge of the desk and started going to town. We opened up all three suitcases and started to rearrange. Now, as similar as we are, apparently Molly and I have different trains of thought. Her first reaction (which she verbalized) was, "I am NOT above putting on every single piece of clothing to get the suitcase weight down." My first thought was, "With a little logic and moving around, we can make this work." So, we started tearing through the luggage, me using my method, Molly using hers. After moving a few items from one suitcase to the next, I looked up and noticed Molly was now wearing her glasses. Since I know the are reading glasses only, I gave her a quizzical look and she explained that they would help lower the weight... um, ok. Thank you, now what are you going to do about the other 29.95 kg we still need to get rid of?! Next time I looked up, she was wearing a new hat she had bought. Then, I saw her grab a pair of soccer socks, tie them together and put them inside her hat. Ok. Seriously?! Because I didn't know what she would possibly do next, I zipped up the suitcases and told her it was time to go re-weigh.
We waited in line again and got to the front, through Molly's wardrobe change and my rearranging, we had gotten it down to one 7 kg carry-on, and 39 kg of checked luggage. Still not willing to pay almost $200 extra, we looked the man in the eyes and said, "We'll be back again." That is, after Molly pounded her fist on the counter and said, "That is SO expensive. Seriously. That is RIDICULOUSLY expensive. Do you understand how expensive that is?" Thankfully, I think some of her fury got lost in translation, and the man just smiled and nodded.
Back to our little 'workzone' we went. First thing Molly saw when she unzipped her suitcase was a pair of jeans, she quickly picked them up and said, "Are you kidding? These are my heavy jeans!" Before I could blink an eye, she had them on, on top of the jeans she was already wearing! Taking her lead, I switched from flip flops to tennis shoes, put on a jacket, drank one of the bottles of juice we were bringing back as a souvenir for Tim, and stuck a book in my pocket. (I DID put my foot down and refuse when Molly suggested/demanded I put on a gray headband that has been part of our family since I was in 4th grade. I guaranteed her it WOULD NOT make or break our weight allowance!)
Since there was just no way we could possibly redistribute the weight any further among the two checked bags, we decided our only option was to take some more of it out. Thankfully, Molly had bought a huge purse at the market the day before, so we stuck a bunch of heavy stuff in there (coffee beans, another huge bottle of Pocari Sweat (for Tim!), and some cookies... why we had a package of nasty Indonesian cookies is beyond me. You're lucky they made the cut, mom, the trash can was our next option!). We loaded almost all of the books into my backpack (except Molly's 6 pound textbook, which we just left in the middle of the floor while we went to weigh and picked it up later on our way to the plane!) and crammed a little more stuff into my purse. Then, with much prayer, we waited in line a third time and got to the front of the line. 30.4 kg for the two checked bags! Success! I quickly ran and got some money out of the ATM (thankfully my card worked because we had ZERO cash!), paid for the second 15 kg bag, grabbed everything else and we darted to our gate. Now, hopefully you've been able to follow this story thus far. If so, you'll realize that the people working the desk may not have been the brightest since, as Newton's first law tells us, weight cannot just disappear. We still have NO idea what they think happened to our 30 extra kg, although, we're hoping they did at least notice our wardrobe changes and dedication! But the fact that they didn't even second guess the fact that we had arrived with 3 suitcases and a purse and were now headed to our gate with 2 purses, a camera bag, 1 suitcase, and a backpack, leaves us wondering what they did notice.
As we passed through security, we realized that in all the commotion, we'd forgotten about the 3 oz. liquid rule. For once hoping that the Indonesian security would be as unsafe and lax as always, we loaded our suitcase onto the belt. For the first time ever, we got stopped for them to inspect our bag (unless you've traveled there, you don't understand how rare this is.. last summer Molly bought a gun-shaped lighter and took it through security without them saying a single word or giving a second glance!). They found the Pocari Sweat and despite our sweet-talking, guilt-tripping and white skin, we couldn't talk them in to letting us keep it. Considering that was the least of our worries now, though, we begrudgingly handed it over and continued to our gate.

Sorry, Tim. We tried. Your other ole-ole is pretty sweet, though, so you can still be excited!

Less than 30 minutes later, we were on our plane (with more prayer that our extra weight wouldn't cause a disaster!), and then 2 hours and a little turbulence later, we were finally in Singapore, free of Tiger Airways forever. We found it ironic that the last thing the pilot said was, "We hope you enjoyed flying on Tiger Airways, the low-fare airline for all your flying needs." CLEARLY he has a different definition of "low fare" than we do.. or he's never tried to bring more than one outfit of clothing with him on a flight.