got out of the driveway and......got onto the plane of course (I know that once we have pictures, the TR will go faster...promise)
Day 1-Getting on the Plane
I look over excitedly at Black Ear Envy
, flashing a big were going to Disneyworld smile. He doesnt return the excitement. Whats the matter? I inquire. I am afraid we are going to miss our flight, we are so late, He proclaims sourly.
I thought you were in charge of making sure we left for the flight on time? I say, taken aback. Well, I tried to say we needed to go and no one would listen to me, and you, you are in your own little world. Ok, that I am, in my own little
.ack! Whats that wetness I feel on my foot?
Its coming from my purse
oh no! the water bottle
.The envelope with our ticketless flight information, our confirmation numbers, my moms tickets to parks, some only on paper, and dds food allergy list of foods she can and cant have (that no, I dont have memorized) is in there. The envelope is soaked. The paper items may be destroyed. Even though the children have done a wonderful job of cleaning out the van, they have left a folded up bath towel on the floor in my footspace. What providence. I gently surround the envelope and press it between two sides of the towel. I set the envelope to the side and sop up the water and soak up the wetness out of my drenched purse.
Attempting to determine just how this happened, I retrace the events that led up to this moment. I set my purse down in the driveway before the driveway game of frogger with the water bottles (thanks to LeeLee2U this fiasco has its own name). In a CSI crime investigation mode
I deduct that I could not have left my lid loose and caused this kind of damage. The loose lid had exploded off of the bottle with incredible force. I reconstruct that a child must have stepped on my purse during frogger, because of the trajectory pattern of the water that has exploded inside of it. This is confirmed by the evidence of my very bent wire clipon sunglasses. I set the sunglasses to the side to work on later. As I very gently remove the contents of the envelope, the outside envelope disintegrates. It took the brunt of the water damage. I wonder to myself if the inside paperwork will survive? I carefully peel the wet paperwork apart with surgical skill and breathe a sigh of relief when I realize that we have lost no important pieces of paper. I lay each fragile wet piece out to dry on the dashboard of our van. This is kind of funny because on every single driving trip we take, we usually have wet laundry that is sitting on the dash, last trip it was bras and socks. The entire dashboard is covered with paperwork set out to dry now, and all this happens while we are driving. It kind of just feels like any other trip weve taken now, kind of like a WhosYourMickey family vacation tradition. Black ear envy is just rolling his eyes.
I think it can dry on the fourty five minute drive to the airport. I say. What time is it? I ask.
7:10, responds Black Ear Envy, We were supposed to be at the airport by now. I think now we will have to skip breakfast, he says. Oh we cant skip breakfast! I explain. Our next time to eat will not be until 2 in the afternoon at Friendlies! If we do not eat on the way we will have to pay airport prices for food! I do the math
7:10 plus a 45 minute drive to the airport is 7:55, add 15 minutes to grab food is 8:10, thats exactly an hour before the flight at 9:10, so well be fine, I say. Black Ear Envy says You are supposed to be to the airport TWO hours before your flight because of the new security.
Somehow, the car erupts with enough But Daddy, Im hungry from whispy thin Aristcatgirl, and You know I have to eat in the morning to function from AAAT girl that it is off to Burger King we go, everyone orders breakfast, and our gluten and corn free girl gets two chocolate milks off the menu, Burger King being one of the only fast food establishments that sells non corn sweetened chocolate milk. We do not need to purchase drinks for everyone because we have the waters and the seven bottles of martinellis apple juice. I forgot to mention in that frogger episode that it was eight bottles of water AND seven bottles of apple juice rolling down the driveway.
As we come up towards the airport entrance at 8:10, I carefully refold the mostly dry paperwork and place it back into my purse. We drive to economy parking and are let out with all the luggage at a bus stop. We wait for about 20 minutes at the bus stop. Bus arrives at 8:30. It is already pretty full of people, but we manage to get ourselves, eleven bags and eleven carry ons into the bus
Except for Grandma, dd, and me, everyone in the family is standing on the bus and holding onto a bar.
There is a long walk to where the bag check in is. We arrive at bag check in and separate the carry ons from the checked luggage. Dd has to go to the bathroom, so Grandma takes her just inside to use the airport restrooms, while Black ear Envy and the rest of us help label the checked baggage. It is 8:50. We get the bags all checked in and security will not let us pass because they need to see Grandmas ID. Just at the time they were enquiring about her ID and needing to see it, Grandma and dd return from their trip to the bathroom, and Grandma shows her ID. We now are waved into the airport and briskly begin walking to our gate, stopping nearby an airport trash can to swig the rest of our waters and throw away our empty bottles and two bottles of water that did not get used.
We arrive at the security checkpoint at the gate and an attendant checks us through to the x ray area. Here we take off our shoes, and put all of our things into little baskets to go through X-ray machines. In the crowd we become separated so that our family is not together. The person in front of me goes through beside the xray machine and not through it. Neither the huge security team or myself notices, but a passenger behind me shouts out to the security guard Excuse me, Sir, she didnt go through Huh? he grunts. The passenger repeats herself, pointing and exclaiming she didnt go through the metal detector, she went around. The security team is oblivious. They compose and ask the woman to go through the metal detector and she apologized, thinking she had gone through but acting mistaken. No metal was detected. The security official also got confused with me and asked for my id three times. Then quizzed, Did I already see your id? Yes. Oh, thats right
.As AAAT girl always says to me. Wow
just Wow.
My moms excellent preparation has us all going through security without any contraband. Black Ear Envy noted that someone had left a lipstick and asked if it belonged to anyone, but no one claimed it and he gave it to security. As I collect my bags, security called out some code that got everyone rushing and bussing and brought a supervisor to approve dds special food in her cooler. I told the security personel that there were special rules for people with food allergies. He was familiar with the rules and stated that the issue was with the cod liver oil, and the liquid iron supplement because they were liquids and procedure was to call a supervisor.
As a gloved security guard asks me to hold the cod liver oil up in its dark amber blue bottle, I realize that the bottle that was almost full several days ago is almost gone now. Later we find out that when aristacat girl got sick, ds swigged half of the bottle in an effort to dodge her sickness. I can sure see how much ds was really excited about the trip. He later told me that he wanted to be sure not to ruin dds time by getting sick on her trip. I am always touting the virtues of cod liver oil, but 1 tablespoon at a time
not half a bottle.
The supervisor came over and approved dds special food. We put our shoes on and gathered our carry ons. It is here that ds loses his beloved roll of quarters and pre 1982 pennies for pressed pennies, forgetting to add it back to his carry on bag and leaving it in one of the little tubs at the x ray area. As we walk through to the next area the next thing we see is a large open ice filled cooler next to a man with a cash register who sells water, juice and pop. I select a water and a juice out of the cooler. I pull out my mostly dry ten dollar bill that was in a side pocket of my purse, pay $6.34 for the two drinks and jokingly comment on how this must be how the airport pays for its new security. The man at the counter shrugs, giving no notice to my damp method of payment and comments that he is paid by an independent contractor not associated with the airport. Did I hear him correctly??? Hmmm
.someone has a nice little racket going on anyway.
I had begun to let my conspiracy theorist mind wander and realize, oh, where is Black Ear Envy and the children? They have all gone ahead while I was delayed at security, down this hallway that opens up into a seating area. We quickly find each other, and I give a relaxing exhale and sit down in the chair besides Black Ear Envy. There, I say Weve made it in plenty of
Flight now boarding for Midwest flight
calls over the audio system. I look at Black Ear Envy with very wide eyes. See what I mean, he said That was cutting it kind of close. We hand the woman at the boarding pass counter four adult ids and AAAT girl adds her ID in there, and I wonder if this confused the boarding pass attendant. The attendant counted our boarding passes over three times, saying No
Wait as if befuttled in between counting people and passes.
Maybe the enormity and pressure of the job makes it difficult to count. Ive worked at a bank before and counted lots of money but the counting pressure for the boarding pass lady must be way more difficult. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight!!!!! Eight! She hands everyone their boarding pass, but wait!
We go to get on the plane and my Mom was first and finds that she is not allowed on the plane because the attendant didnt give her a boarding pass. The desk is five feet from the boarding area so this is the conversation that ensued. The boarding pass attendant said I didnt have your ID my Mom said yes you did. My mom shows the attendant her ID again. The attendant gives my mom her boarding pass and we all show our passes to the next attendant and are allowed on the plane. We get to our seats. Oh my. These are nice roomy seats. Its like the entire plane is 1st class. They have us sitting two and two in two rows directly across from each other. RG with dd at the window, Dh with Aristacatgirl at the window, myself with ds at the window, and my Mom with AAAT girl at the window. AAATgirl got to have two windows! She was so excited. We stowed away our carry ons and prepare for the two hour and twenty minute flight. Things are going smoothly. They give the preflight instructions and we make our way out onto the tarmac but there is a problem. There is a passenger on the plane who discovered on their own that they had gotten on the wrong plane by mistake. What? A passenger got on the plane by
mistake????!!!!!????? With all this airport security it begs to question
.howd THAT happen?
Ill keep my thoughts to myself on this or this not wanting to go too off topic.
This rogue person on our plane ends up causing quite a delay as the plane has to circle around the tarmac again, a set of stairs come up to the door and the passenger is let our onto the tarmac, then our plane waits its turn to take off at a later time. The plane must re do its safety checklist and informational training because if there is a disruption like this, FAA rules require them to go over all their preflight information again. The high position of the plane gives the children a view over tall orange fencing to see inside construction going on not 40 foot from the plane. Big heavy concrete mixers and backhoes have them enthralled to watch too much to give the delay of the unauthorized passenger any notice.
With all of this our plane would now get to Orlando an hour later than planned, 2:20 instead of 1:20. Will we miss our airport greeter? Will we make it to the 3:00 orientation at GKTW for tickets? This is still the most wonderful trip ever and we are all having a lot of fun, the children expecially are amazed at every turn since going on a plane is new to them.
They would have had to go by at least 14 members of airport security to get onto the wrong plane....
(at least until we get to GKTW!!)
Much less 
and more laundry
And great that they had ice cream for dd!! Hooray!
