Today my Dad was going to fly out to visit my sister for the Holidays. I had insisted that I would get him to the airport. That part started ok. Left home at 6:20 AM, got to his house and picked him up at 7:40 AM.
Got a few blocks away and asked if he had gloves, since it would be plenty cold. No forgot, so we turned back and made him get some out of the his car for the trip and his stay up there. We headed on to the OKC and had not problems with that either, got to the airport at 9:35 AM for his 11:30 flight. All very smooth. Then it came, the call from home. “can you go look for this ornament at Hobby Lobby”? OK, after I get Dad off to Denver. I got a pass to go in with him and made sure he didn’t lose his boarding pass. That was an adventure. He stuck it in one pocket and I and the guy running his wheel chair asked for his ID to get through the TSA checks. Well he found his license but couldn’t find the boarding pass. Looking in the wrong pockets, it was in his pants pocket not his jacket pockets (of which it had 6 – I had not seen a jacket with that many pockets). We finally got all that dug out, I got all my pockets emptied and put in the trays and we got all his stuff off and in trays and of course they have to double, triple check the air concentrator, and do a wipe on my hands etc. –
Whew, but we got through that and out to re-dress ourselves and put stuff back. That caused another looking for the boarding pass, where was it, what did we do with it, well it was in a different pocket this time. Anyway we got stationed then to the restroom. I got him a bottle of water and we waited for the plane. there were at least 5 other wheelchair passengers that came up to the same spot waiting on the same flight. After one more search for the boarding pass I told him to just hold it in his hand as they would need to see it.
You can say that Southwest is cheerful and helpful, even if you don’t like the boarding process they have (cattle car). The got him on the plane and I called ahead to warn my sister that he was on the plane and headed that way!
Then my other duty started. Try to find this special ornament. I had both a GPS and a smart phone with GPS and the software app of Where working, trying to find Hobby Lobby stores. I went to the one I know where it was (West Reno) and they didn’t have anything even remotely close to what we were looking for. I then struck off on a “3 hour tour- looking for Gilligan” of trying to find the other stores. The Phone GPS with the WHERE gave me several in the OKC area. I when to the ones it listed on SW 44th, hell that is the warehouse and it is huge. I went to the one that used to be on S Wester (gone!). I chose not to go further south to the one in S Moore or Norman, but I did circle back to the one on NW Expressway and nothing left of these special ornaments, then I went to the one by Quail Springs Mall, nothing at that one either. Did another search and found there should be one on 33rd in Edmond, got there and the store was gone. At that point and after 100 miles and 3 hours, I decided “TO CRAP WITH THIS” and headed home.
The only good parts were getting Dad off on time, eating at Pearls Cajun Kitchen, and Getting home without getting hit, crashed or beat up.
I saw more people than I wanted to in a very short period of time and I saw at least 3 accidents, and none of them involved me so I felt lucky for the day.
We have to have days like this to appreciate the other days in our lives, and understand that not everything is going to work like we think it will. We need to just take it and smile when we come out ok.
Have I said it in the past 3 days, I hate airline travel and the hassles we have to go through for that, but appreciate the fact they are trying to make it safer, even if some of the focus appears to be – “mis-guided”. – WD0AJG