Friday, March 12, 2010

Flashback - The Flight to Portland

Ok, I'm going to do some flashbacks of what's happened so far, but, being flashbacks, they won't tell the entire story about how all of our stuff got into a truck or how Jennifer kept handing me new boxes to try to cram onto the truck even though there was no more room on the truck, but I will show the picture of me standing on the back of the truck in my pajama bottoms after finally closing the back of the truck.

And here it is.


This picture is pretty pointless because of what it doesn't show: namely all our stuff behind those big boards and the intense hostility between me and the picture taker, who had been making me carry out boxes all morning to stuff into a full truck that she seemed to think magically expanded based on her increasing urgency that "This has to go, too!"

This is how I got even with her, and it wasn't really even that hard.

See, Jen and the kids were going to Portland on December 30, 2009, and since they weren't coming back, they got one-way tickets on Delta. Since I needed to come back to finish dealing with the house and wrap up some work-related stuff, so I got a round trip ticket.

On US Air.

Which meant that while we all (Nixon included, but not the cats) had to head to the airport at 5:30am, I would be seperating from them and traveling alone. Gloriously, comfortably alone. Alone to eat what I wanted, when I wanted. Alone to read or listen to my iPod or wander or sleep. Happy. Alone.

Meanwhile, my lovely bride sent me this text message before she even got on the first plane:
"I am at the gate in line for a seat assignment. I am Miss Misery and I want a divorce. Security people were really nice but that was the worst ordeal ever. I blame you."

Jen single-handedly had to run the Orange Alert Choo-Choo Train through the security checkpoint. Her and two children means three carry-ons, 6 shoes, three jackets and two DVD players. That's bad enough, but what really sent her over the edge was that she had forgotten the tablespoon of water in each of the two water bottles she had brought for the kids. Disposing of that water in an airport is somewhat akin to disposing of spent nuclear rods.

My connecting flight was delayed for two hours in Denver. I nearly wept with joy.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Where to begin...Scott left out some relevant information about that day at the Atlanta airport which I now refer to as "the unforgiveable, hellish travel debacle for which Scott is solely to blame".

1. I had about 58 minutes sleep the night before.

2. while I was hustling two kids, three winter coats, 6 shoes, two backpacks, three suitcases, one shoulderbag engorged with snacks and toys, two dvd players and two aluminum cutesy rainbow colored bombs, I mean water bottles through security (and back again), Scott was 5 convenient minutes behind us, three rows over, ladened with only his computer bag and a smug grin.

3. I am still working on that divorce.

Unknown said...

Even the dang dog was on my flight! And Hughston locked himself in the bathroom and we almost missed our connection in Denver. Good times!

B. Prentiss said...

oh my, this one's almost as funny as the Belty McShorts post. I can't wait for the next installment