The Remains of the Trip

by Pa Rock
Weary Traveler

I am safely home in Arizona, but getting here was truly a comedy of errors. Please read on...

To begin with my flight plans were a horror show, thanks primarily to my own naivete. I had airline tickets that the group bought - New York to Detroit to Kansas City - and airline tickets that I bought - Kansas City to Minneapolis to Phoenix (no direct flights!). When I boarded in New York yesterday, they would only give me boarding passes for New York and Detroit - even though all of my flights that day would be on Northwest Airlines. I did talk the clerk at Northwest in New York into checking my luggage all the way through to Phoenix.

My travels were complicated by the fact that the cold that I had been fighting for several days had settled in my head. The pressure during take-offs and landings was especially painful, and I felt like my ears were going to explode and cover my fellow passengers in industrial strength ear wax!

The day was uneventful until we tried to leave Detroit. I had a little over a two-hour window to catch my next flight out of Kansas City, but we were pulled off of the runway in Detroit to replace a compass that had gone out. While that was being accomplished, a passenger became ill, had to receive emergency medical treatment, and was removed from the plane. We had to wait on the new compass to be brought in and installed, and then we had to wait while the medical supplies that were used on the ill passenger were replaced. When we got to Kansas City, I hustled one counter over just as they began boarding for the flight to Minneapolis. Rush, rush, rush!

While I was enroute to Minneapolis, Carla called and left me a message saying that my suitcase had been off-loaded in Kansas City, and she had taken it to the Northwest baggage office and told them to get it to Phoenix pronto. When I arrived in Phoenix shortly before midnight I went to their baggage office and was told that my suitcase would be in Phoenix by noon the next day, and it would be delivered directly to me!

Great! It had been a helluva day, but life was once again beautiful. All I had to do was contact the shuttle from the Parking Spot, get my car out of hawk, and race for home where I would crash until time for my suitcase to get in.

It wasn't until the shuttle pulled up behind my car at the Parking Spot that I realized that my keys were in my suitcase - which was in Kansas City. I told the manager just to drop me at their office and I would call a cab. But a lifetime of good living suddenly paid off when the only other people on the shuttle, a young couple named Mason and Christy, asked where I lived. Goodyear, I replied sadly because nobody but me and the scorpions live that far out. Oh, they said, we live in Surprise (a community that neighbor's Goodyear), and we'll take you home. Praise Allah!

"I've always depended on the kindness of strangers." Blanche DuBois

On the way to Goodyear, another thought occurred to me. My apartment key was also in the suitcase that was vacationing in Kansas City. (Can you see what kind of day I was having?) I had Mason and Christy drop me at the apartment office so that I could get the management's evening number off of the door. There I discovered that those fine folks at Palm Valley Luxury Rentals no longer kept their phone numbers on the door - probably to eliminate those pesky after-hours calls. I found a young man in the apartment complex computer center and got him to let me into the office. He didn't know the number, but found it on-line. After three calls to the emergency number, I decided that Palm Valley probably wasn't that into emergencies, so I arranged couple of chairs on my porch and prepared to sleep outside - sitting up.

Almost an hour later one of the managers called and said that she would drive in to unlock my door. She assured me that she could be there in just forty-five minutes. But, a maintenance worker responded a few minutes later and saved her the trip.

I did get up this morning before my suitcase arrived. After fishing out my keys, I got on the Internet and finally located a phone number for a co-worker who was able to give me Benson's number. God love Odessa and Bobby - they rushed right over and drove me across the Valley of Hell to pick up my car.

So I'm home, my suitcase is home, and my little car is home! Tomorrow I will go back to work at a job that I love - and Barack Obama will start his new job. Things are getting better and better!

Holiday Highlights

Feliz Navidad Amigos,

I have been in Missouri for the past few days celebrating the holidays with family and friends. There was no snow in the Ozarks this holiday season, so I will have to be content with watching it snow on television or in the movies this winter. It definitely won’t happen in Phoenix!

This year’s holiday adventure began as I was trying to get cleared to catch my flight out of Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport on the 19th. The good folks at TSA managed to find a reason to collect my shaving cream and toothpaste, even though I thought that I had met all of their insufferable criteria. (The plastic baggie that I had them in was too big, as were the containers. And, for all of you future travelers out of Phoenix, it’s not the amount of toothpaste in the tube; it is the amount that the tube was designed to carry.) Sky Harbor is one place where you do not want to argue with authority figures. Last September their airport security caused the death of a woman when they handcuffed her and left her alone in a locked room. The lady was inebriated, supposedly, and spoke impolitely to the airport cops. After they left her alone, she choked to death trying to squirm out of the handcuffs. Turns out she was a wealthy, well-connected socialite from New York. Whoops! That’s gonna cost them an airplane or two!

My second holiday adventure occurred at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, a former cow pasture located just outside of Bentonville, Arkansas, near the little crossroads of Highfill. Highfill International, as it is lovingly referred to by the locals, is a relatively new airport that was put together about a decade ago by the Walton’s, Tyson’s, Hunt’s, and other assorted aristocrats of the area. My Dad arrived there on the 19th to pick me up. There was a parking space right in front of the terminal, which he thought was great, so he parked there and went inside. (My Dad is eighty-three. It takes a great deal of effort for him to walk, and he can hardly hear at all.) When I met him in the airport I heard an overhead announcement describing his truck and saying that the owner needed to get out there immediately. I put on my best smile and went out to resolve the situation. The lady with the ticket pad was already writing and refused to show any holiday spirit. I had her bring her supervisor outside and proceeded to give them some of my holiday spirit. Total price: $20.00 - and I don't regret a single peso! There is no doubt in my mind that Santa Claus will leave chicken poop in her stocking this year!

Adventure number three happened the next day after I had torn apart my Dad’s house searching for my car keys. I had left my car at a park and fly (The Parking Spot) in Phoenix, so I didn’t need them; I just wanted to know where they were. After a long, futile search, I telephoned the Parking Spot and asked Stephanie, the sweetest lady in all of Phoenix, if she would check my car and see if I had left the keys in the ignition. I gave her time to check and then called back. Stephanie replied that my keys were in the ignition, and that my car was still running – thirty hours after I had left it there! A Parking Spot driver was eventually able to get into the car, turn off the engine, and retrieve my keys. I will be nominating myself for the Darwin Award this year!

My final adventure occurred on the night of the 22nd as I was trying to leave. Winter storms were flirting with the Ozarks, and I made a decision to go to the airport the night before my 5:30 a.m. scheduled departure. I didn’t want to take the chance of having my Dad get out in bad weather. A friend took me to Highfill and I spent the entire night listening to taped TSA warnings about all kinds of ways those sneaky terrorists might bring their evil to Arkansas.

Three of my New Year’s resolutions are to always use the Parking Spot in Phoenix when I fly, always be polite to the Gestapo at Sky Harbor, and never fly into or out of Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. Of course, there is a good chance that my next trip home will be by Greyhound, or in my amazing little car that can idle for thirty hours!

There were many happy times woven into this holiday. I saw all three of my children and both of my grandchildren. Tim, my youngest, informed us that he is engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Erin, which is great because we all love Erin! Boone, my oldest grandson, announced that he had given two girls diamond rings for Christmas. He bought them at the dollar store. I saw my sister, Gail, and two of her kids, Tiffany and Justin, and Justin’s wife, Lisa. I had lunch with some of my old co-workers, and ran into some others at the county courthouse. And I was able to visit with old friends Mertie Harmon and James and Patti Carroll. A lot happened in just a few short days! Now I will relax and spend the rest of the holidays with a few other good friends - both paperback and hardbound!

May '08 bring Peace to us all!

Pa Rock