A Three Hour Tour

Two weeks ago, we took a friend to the airport. This is not normally news because it’s just kind of the thing that I think friends do. Need a ride to the airport? I’m not doing anything mission critical? Sure, let’s go! As we dropped him off, he said he was going to catch a cab when he came home. And I thought to myself, “That’s silly.” And then I said aloud, “That’s silly. Just text me your details, we’ll come get you.”

Fast forward to yesterday. We cut friend camp short so that the kids and I could pile in the car and trek to the airport to be there on time. I didn’t have all the flight info, but he’d said 2:30 so I figured we’d get there around then, hang in the cell phone lot, and wait for him to text. No biggie.

We’re not crazily far from the airport, but it still takes about an hour to get there because of traffic and the fact that there aren’t any direct routes. You either go up one short side of a rectangle and then a long one. Or you go up the other short side of the rectangle and the other long one. (I dislike many of the roads here because I feel like they all do this to me. 12 miles away? Yep. Takes an hour to get there? Yep.) (Note: the airport is actually 31 miles, but the 12 mile thing? Also true.)

So we piled in the car at 1:30 and started off. The boys were in heaven because I’d given them free access to their devices for the trip, thinking it would make everyone a bit happier in the long run. This turned out to be a good call.

We arrived at the cell phone lot around 2:25. Not bad, just five minutes early. So I parked and rolled down the windows and we began to wait. At 2:40, I thought, well, let’s see if I can figure out what flight he’s on, because surely I should’ve heard something by now. Happily, there was only one flight in this timeframe from his starting location…and it had a 40 minute delay. So instead of landing at 1:50, it was just coming in for a landing as I looked it up. Okay, no big deal, I thought. The kids are happy, it’s a nice day, and I never leave home without a book. Except, of course, that I had a friend coming over later in the afternoon. She’d planned to arrive around 4:30. I did some quick mental calculations and…yeah, we ought to just make it. Phew!

3:00 comes and goes and I begin to worry. No text? Nothing saying he’d landed or anything? Then my phone buzzes with a text from my hubby saying that our friend texted him because he can’t get a call to connect to my phone and he’s landed and in customs. Fine, he should be through customs and baggage within thirty minutes, I figure, what could possibly go wrong?

That, my friends, is something my husband says all the time. And inevitably I end up finding out exactly all the things that fall into that pile.

3:30. Still nothing. I have one kid asleep. Another glued to his 3DS. So no worries. Friend’s wife texts, he still can’t get a call or text to my phone. Does he have the right number, I ask? She repeats what he has and…yeah, I fat fingered a 9 where a 0 should be when I Facebook messaged it to her. So that’s on me. She corrects it with him and, yay, we can now communicate directly. He’s at baggage claim and has his bags. Hooray! So I leave the cell phone lot (to the great rejoicing of my awake child) and we go start to circle. Every time we go down the arrival aisle I say, “Keep an eye out for Mr. Ben.” And he does. And I do. And…no one. We circle six or seven times and then I get a call.

Apparently, when he went through customs, his printout got an X on it. Which means he got selected for random extra screening and no one seems to know how long that’s going to take. If I need to go, they understand, and he’ll catch a cab.

By this point, I’ve texted my friend and told her that I’m running seriously late and will understand if she just wants to go home. But she’s laid back and it’s a nice day and she says she’ll just hang out on my back deck or take a walk around the neighborhood because she’d wanted to get a walk in, anyway. So I say, okay, we’ll hang a bit longer and see how it goes.

Back to the cell phone lot we go. It’s 4:10 by now. The awake child has to go to the bathroom. The little one probably will but he’s still asleep. We find an old empty gatorade bottle in the back of the van so…travesty averted. (This is the joy of boys. Honestly, little girls would’ve been stuck.) Tick tick tick. The youngest wakes up. He’s hungry. And bored. The 3DS battery is starting to go. It’s getting hotter and stuffier and they’ve been troopers but really, that’s a long time to sit in a parking lot without complaining.

Another text: the person being screened at the table over from his just got taken away in handcuffs. He still has no idea how long it’s going to be, I can go if I need to. And you know what? It’s 4:40…I apologize and say I think I will. So I get everyone buckled up and then another text – he’s out and at door 2 if I haven’t gone! I hadn’t even pulled out of the parking lot yet, so we’re good. I grab him…and then because it’s 2 hours later than it should’ve been, we sit in 2 hours of traffic to get home.

Bright side? The kids got Chick-Fil-A (friend’s treat, though that wasn’t necessary). No one peed in their pants. And my friend waiting for me at my house had had a lovely rest and walk and spent time studying the Luna Moth that had been hanging out on our deck.

In the end, all’s well that ends well. I told my husband it’ll be funny in about a week. But I’m already snickering.