My final days at home were packed with events. I enjoyed my last moments of work (believe it or not). At WestStar I came in and had a chance to say goodbye to Barry Young and Kim Komando. They said that I could come back at any time. That isn’t to say that they’d just put me on a payroll because we were friends, but it let me know that they enjoyed working with me and liked having me around. I’ll miss WestStar, and many of them will miss me. At KFYI I got to say goodbye to the weekenders as that was my last shift. Had I stayed one more week, I’d have done Barry’s morning show again. Rats.
Friday night I wanted to have one last romp with my friends. Aaronhead and Lamb backed out. It became John, his fiancé Krisha, and me. We ordered Papa John’s Pizza and watched a movie. They moved to a house lost way out in the wasteland of Queen Creek, coincidently across the street from my sister, Wendy, and Rob. I was on my way over to see them when I got a call on my cell. It was Rob and he wanted me to come over and watch the kids while he and Wendy take their oldest to the hospital. My cell phone has no signal when in BFE, so I had to guess that she was still alive. I made it to the house to see that she had landed bad on the trampoline and banged her chin up good. I watched the remaining three kids.
Rob got a new computer and the curse of being a computer major is that everyone knows you can work on theirs. I was backing up stuff and updating his system while watching the kids. By the time I got home it was 1:30am. I had to be at work for the last day at 6am. I decided it would be easier to sleep there and walk 30 seconds than to wake up an hour early and drive. I got to the station at 2:30 and to bed by at least 3am. At 6 I was at work for a solid 9 hour shift. Upon finishing that, I had to get home. It was my last day home and the family was coming over for Swiss Steak and mashed potatoes. The family left around 10pm. Then I had to START packing for Hawaii. I finished packing at 2:30am, making it nearly 20 hours without sleep and running on only 4 hours to begin with.
I woke up at 6:30. And then again at 6:45. At 6:55, Mom came in to tell me it was time to get going. We arrived at the airport with time to spare. I had my ticket in hand and all my luggage in the back. I hugged my mom goodbye and unloaded my stuff. As I walked into the door I checked my pockets. Either my mom is a good pick pocket or I must have put the ticket down to give her that last goodbye hug. I think it was the latter.
I quickly dropped my bags and ran back through the entrance doors. The sensor was only on the outside and could not see me coming. In case you were wondering, sliding doors will NOT swing open, no matter how hard you run into them. I ran around to the exit doors as I watched the minivan carrying my ticket drive off. I got within almost 20 yards from the back of the van jumping and waving my arms right in the middle of the street. I learned a valuable lesson that day. Don’t ever be on the road when my mom drives, she never looks behind her as she merges.
She drove around one side and I ran to that same side watching her as she did so. And here I thought I wasted my Spring taking that Exercise class. Maybe it didn’t do me much good after all. I made it once again about 20 yards behind her, again right in the middle of the street and again waving and flailing my arms like a refugee wanting food supplies dropped on him from the jets above. Again, a seamless merge with no idea of what laid behind her.
I waited in line hoping something could be done. The lady at the ticket window was very apathetic. I spoke next with a travel agent representative that Dad had used to book the flight. It was my good luck that the agent had a printout of who paid for tickets and she issued me a new one.
Then I had to travail the frontier of security once again. I was musing at the fact that some random guy walked into the airport, dropped a ton of luggage and took off running like a bat out of hell leaving before the ensuing explosion and not a person seemed to notice. When I came back, my luggage was sitting pretty. As I was pondering that episode, security then went ballistic over something that shouldn’t have been too suspicious, a computer part in my bag. I needed a new video card and had found a great deal while home. I didn’t want this valuable piece of hardware to get damaged, so I took it as a carry on. The “expert” at the x-ray sent my bag through 3 times. Then they decided to take a gander at it in person. Apparently, they have never seen a computer part before. Moral of that story, you can take bombs into the airport, just not past the gates.
As I was getting ready for takeoff, my name was called over the PA system. My mother had seen my ticket in the van once she got home. She did not check the messages, so she drove back to the airport in a panic looking for me. She and the lady at the check in counter were amazed that I made it to the gate without my ticket. They went to the trouble of giving my mom a temporary gate pass so she could deliver my now voided ticket. She had to go through the works as well. Once they finished up and disposed of the rubber gloves they used on my mom in the bio waste bin Mom just sat with me since there was no other reason to justify going through all that.
Once in Hawaii, my ride was waiting. Once back on campus, my camera was missing. I still do not know where it went or why it’s gone, but it’s gone! It’s not the camera I miss so much as it is the film and what was on my tapes. All of Europe and my family videos were gone. Those things you just can’t replace. Having the master key to the hale, I might just do some extra room inspections…
None the less, I persevere.
Here’s to a good year!
