- Joined
- Jan 19, 2006
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- 3,589
Day One:
To recap - the night before we left Dan and I were totally packed and had cleaned the house from top to bottom. Dan knows me well enough by now to get the fact I cannot rest until I know the people who will come to the house when we end up in some horrific accident, may be able to say a lot of things about me but one of them will be, "she left a tidy house." My version of make sure you have clean underwear on, encase you are in a car accident!
This is the same whether the kids come or not. The difference is in the cooking. If they are coming with, I need to have enough food for Ireland in a Potato Famine, for a car ride. If they are not, I need to make enough food for the time we will be gone and the following several years just because I am an overachiever.
Or neurotic.
You can choose.
Scared at 17 and 14, they cannot function without well labeled food in the freezers.
Probably more scared their Father, who is in charge while I am gone,
, would not consider that children, like animals, need to be fed and watered at least once a day.Let alone changing their litter box.
I just do not want their last memory to be that their Mom was more worried about herself than them. I have taught them to be self sufficient but do not take away Mother duties or I might just get fired. What shall I have to do with all my free time then?
I love being a Mom. Love it more than anything else I could ever be. Not perfect at it but working on mastering what I can. So yes, I made food for them and I felt better.
More relaxed.
Less guilty.
The less guilty part is important so I could enjoy the trip.
So in the round about, topsy turvey world I live in….
I was totally selfish!
Our flight was at 7:30a.m. Carsyn and Baylor took us to Hubert. H Humphrey Airport by 6:00. It is nice to have the taxi service live in the basement!
No need to worry they will not show up!It was the first time I had headed to the airport since Minnesota lost their minds. You see, for anyone living in Minnesota or travels to Minnesota, HHH terminal is now known as Terminal 2. This is because we have morons running big business on many levels and it includes the airlines.
For as long as I can remember, Minneapolis has had 2 airports, within an exit of each other. One was the smaller, mostly international flights of HHH, the other the main terminal called Lindbergh. People could get confused on which one to go to because although the airport names were always clearly marked, which airline flew out of which one was not. So you better know before you reach the exit or park your car or get dropped off. Many people needed shuttles between the airport because they went to the wrong one, missed their flights etc.
Now, because I have flown out of plenty other airports and cities with multiple airports, the problem is solved obviously by simply printing signs to alert drivers, which airline flew out of where.
Seems reasonable and cost efficient.
This is why it was not used.
The airports and others spent millions of dollars hiring experts to assess the situation. Polled people on what the problem was and how to fix it. Hired bean counters, road crew experts, customer service reps etc…to figure out this mass panic dilemma like it was the bubonic plague.
They came to the conclusion that having two names was completely off the wall and should now baptize the airports ….
Terminal One and Terminal Two.
Thank God they do not name children.
They also added to the bottom of the new signs, that we tax payers had to dole out, the names of the airlines.
Just encase the whole Terminal one and Terminal two thing was not enough help.
Because of course why would you just not fix the problem with that, instead of making us look like we are from planet Imatotaltool and cannot have actual names for our airports without causing hysteria like Godzilla walking through Tokyo.
So here we were, the kids asking which airport we were headed to, me saying Terminal 2 and them wondering why we are calling it that.
I told them not to get me started!
After hugs and kisses and the kids looking like they just won the lottery (Carsyn did post on FB that it would be a 2 week Fiesta and all were invited!), we walked into the small airport and headed to the ticketing agent with our crud. We had them handle one suitcase each and then took our small carry on’s and soon were approaching “Operation Feel Good”, more commonly known as: TSA.
There was a family behind us that we found out were heading to Disney as well. They were not on our flight though as we were headed to Atlanta, to drive to Orlando. This was their first trip and they were going moderate. I was all excited for them until I told the Dad we were going there as well.
He was confused as to why we were going, “Without kids?” He was perplexed at the notion.
“Yup! We love it there.” I assured him. I then said my biggest tip was to have a good time and don’t assume they could fit everything in on one trip.
“This is are one and only trip and if I could get out of it I would,” he said emphatically.
I looked at him in disbelief. Son and daughter behind him, about 8-10 years old respectively, wife hauling a fanny pack with a permagrin. He has not even gotten on the plane there and he is already sick of Disney.
Awesome.
He is the type of person that can go one of two ways.
First and most often found route in my experience is that he will look for every reason not to find the magic, complain about Disney nickel and diming him to death and his poor family and those around him wherever he goes, will have his negativity shoved on them like humidity in the Everglades on July 4th.
The second option is Disney will perform an exorcism on his attitude
and he will be transformed into a Pluto 
hugging Wonder Dad by the end of the 5 days.Chances of that with his personality, was as much as Snookie leaving her house sans a “bump it,” and spray tan.
So after being waved through security with ease and Dan looking disappointed he didn’t get the white glove treatment, we walked into the gating area.
Now this airport is small like I said. Really small. As soon as we were past security, we found a bathroom where I went in and put a face on that improved the one God had given me.
I hope anyway!
While in the bathroom, I could hear a woman screaming and swearing.
“I am over it. I am so F (you know what) over it.”
I assumed Dan was trying to get through security again in hopes of getting Angelina Jolie to wand him and she was having to be firm for him to get the point.
Okay, that was a lie.
A falsehood.
A fabrication.
I really thought a stewardess was finally willing to tell people she was indeed a cross dresser and could no longer live her life pretending he, was a she.
That is not true either but it would make for a great story on Lifetime wouldn’t it?
I came out of the bathroom and to my right, saw a woman, holding a toddler, by a bank of phones, screaming into the receiver.
Who she was talking to could come get her because she was indeed “over it.” She was also sick of his shady life and was not getting on the plane.
I wanted to point out to her that her argument was stupid on two points in particular.
#1 If indeed, she was over it, the entire airport would not be hearing about “it.”
#2 If she was not intending to get on the plane, she probably should not be at the airport.
Just Sayin.
Maybe she thought she was at Walmart and was confused as to where the heck the Industrial sized Mayo had gone to.
What I was even more upset about was she was screaming all of this with her daughter sitting by her. Some older woman with her, walked up to her and tried to get her to hush it but again, people do not get that life is not a Judge Judy expose and none of us care who your baby daddy is.
You are not backstage on Maury crying to cameras, Whyyyyyyyyyy…..Whyyyyyyyyyyy?“ When you find out that man # 67 is also, not the father.So Dan and I snapped a picture looking cute, trying not to be distracted by the primal screams of a woman mad at a man with colorful language thrown in just because she thought he might not get it without a few four letter words.
Then, we walked past and I had to turn around and look for help. I could not help the urge to knock her on her hind end or find someone to do it legally.
Know who is around at Terminal #2, formally known as HHH, at a little past 6 in the morning in October?
Nobody.
There was a phone on the wall and I picked it up to chat with security like the sign by the phone instructed.
Hours for an emergency is from 8 - 5 p.m. for anyone interested. Please do not have an emergency within the airport before or after the times listed.
I mean what the heck happened to Homeland Security and Code Orange and all that jazz?
I even tried to ask the deli people setting up shop, who I could get and they did not know. They did not even have a work manual for instruction on what to do if someone chokes on a salami on rye!
Feeling safe and comforted about airport security, I realized I could have bowled down the terminal with a grenade and not hit anyone, let alone a renta yenta or cop. I walked past her again and pretended to look at the vending machines and made sure I gave her the evil eye.
I wanted to put her in a head lock and duct tape her mouth shut but with my luck, I would be the one arrested for assault.
So I walked towards Dan and we got to our gate area and watched some news and guess who showed up like a bad case of a gift you need more than cream for?
That’s right.
We were about to have a three hour plane ride with Screamy Suzie and she was up by the check in desk, causing havoc there as well. I was hoping they would need to use a tazer.
In fact after we boarded, we sat there waiting to leave and finally, 10 minutes after everyone else had buckled their seat belts and assumed the kiss your hiney good bye position, she boarded.
I chalked it up to it took awhile for the tranquilizer blow dart to take affect. Those Animal Control guys are pretty accurate though I must say!
It was here I also decided to count how many nut bags I ran into on this trip.
We were at two and the wheels had not even left the ground!
(I need one of these with a margarita too! Although I probably would spit it all over the computer laughing!)
Looks like this one is going to be a great one! And I don't know that many Whitleigh's, so it might be nice to have a few more around the world. 
