Christmas Journey
I was sharing my travel story with a fellow blogger when I realized maybe I should share the whole story. So, here it is....I decided to fly with rugratz to my mother's for the holidays. After much haggling with various sources, I found a way to get decent priced tickets. Last year, the best I could do was $1500 for the three of us, so we stayed home. This year, with the help from ebay and Northwest offering some cheaper fares, I was able to halve my previous sticker shock. What was also cool was the fact that this would be the first plane ride for the rugratz. They were definitely excited.
The day before the trip, I made a pitstop at our local airport. It is small with one terminal. Next year, I heard they are adding a second one. Anyways, small town, small terminal. Should be no problem, right? Wrong. They take their job seriously and are on the ball when it comes to safety. You can ask my best friend, Kel. This year, they wouldn't let her on the plane for her flight. They felt she was dressed too flashy. It was off to be interviewed and searched for her. We ended up getting a few extra hours together as she waited for the next flight. Thank goodness we have five outbound flights a day. Til this day, Kel does not want to ever go near my local airport.
My pitstop was to ask a few questions. I know they had made so many changes to the former rules for flying. I wanted to know what they were. I had presents to bring, electrical equipment (Nintendo Wii and Playstation 2) to transport, and I needed to know if I could park my van there. The woman was helpful. She told me not to wrap any gifts since airport security would just unwrap them and place them back in my suitcase unwrapped. She said I could use my carry-on bag for my electrical equipment and park my van in the lot. It seems everything was set.
Things atarted to go wrong later that day. At first, it was little things like lazy kids or missing shoes. The next day, it was missing tickets and and fighting siblings. We got to the airport just in time to check in and have our tickets reprinted. I felt frustrated with being so hurried after trying to prepare for two weeks. I medicated me and one of the rugratz with motion sickness meds as we waited. I started to feel nauseated when I realized two bags of presents were sitting back at my house. Oh well. I drank my water and hoped the flight attendent would never find out that I ate a double cheeseburger for lunch.
I was excited to go through security with the rugratz. I tried to prepare them for what would happen and what they should do. I went first as a role model and I was quickly pulled aside. The kids didn't understand. Neither did I at the moment. Three security people wanted to know why I had a small lightbulb in the pocket of my coat. I was puzzled until I reached in and felt it. Security was panicking. I informed them I did not have a lightbulb, just a homemade snowman ornament that was given to me earlier by a friend. I forgot it was in my pocket since I hadn't put my coat on and had only been carrying it. They looked at it and informed me it was made with a lightbulb. I didn't know. They handed it back and I thought that was it. Nope, definitely not it.
As I was holding up the line, my kids cleared security. I kept telling them to go sit down, but my son did not want to leave my side. I looked at him and reminded him to listen as another security agent pulled me and my carry-on bag and purse to another area. I asked her to be discreet since she was inspecting a bag with my kids' presents. Thank goodness she tried. I stood there as she unpacked everything wondering if I would ever reach the airplane. That's when I saw her angry face as she held two things in the air. They were my son's cologne and my daughter's nail polish. I forgot that they were in that bag. Packing was so secretive and rushed that my mind forgot to make a mental note. That's when she began the speech. I did not declare these items so them will have to throw them away since I can not have them. I should have know better and etc.... I looked at her in horror. Those were Christmas gifts for the rugratz. I didn't even wrap them yet. I begged her to please let me put them in my luggage. After a few more terse looks, she agreed to do it for me. I described my luggage and she was off. I was free to join the kids again. I was happy to be one of the ten passengers flying that day. (I told you it was a small airport!)
The flight was nice since the weather was beautiful. We arrived a half hour early. As we walked to our connection, we hoped that the rest of our journey would be so smooth. We boarded our plane to Cleveland with much excitement, but with a feeling that bedtime was near. This was a big jet plane, not a little propeller plane like before. The rugratz quickly got cozy as we waited to roll over to the runway for take off. The captain said that at this rate we would be about 30 minutes early. I thought that was cool, since I had presents to wrap still. Boy, was our pilot wrong about being early. It seems that another jet parked itself behind our plane and we could not back up to move towards the runway. We ended up stuck there for some time and ended up being 15 minutes late into Cleveland. Still, it was a smooth flight and the rugratz had a good time. And.....the Dramamine worked. No one got sick!
After arriving to my mom's at 12:15 AM on Christmas morning, I spent 4 hours wrapping like a mad Christmas elf after I had a quick nap. It was much appreciated several hours later. Christmas was fun and the family and rugratz were happy. So was I.
Hope everyone had a merry Christmas and for those of you who are traveling....safe journeys.
Stay sweet 'n smile............................Mz.
posted by MzAriez at 3:12:00 AM
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4 posted da pennies....
