Thursday Thirteen #26 - The Comedy of Errors Edition

We got back Tuesday from my brother-in-law's welcome home party after his safe return from Iraq (Yay!!!) and as much as it was wonderful, there were, of course, a comedy of errors and mishaps throughout the trip, which is par for the course when traveling in my family. So here are:

13 Crazy Things That Happened On Our Trip to D.C.

1. Between my parents, husband, baby and I who were traveling together, we had an entire luggage cart full of luggage. Of course, we realized we forgot one piece of it at the airport after we had arrived at the car rental place via shuttle. Husband had to ride shuttle all the way back driven by crazy man to retrieve it.

2. Had to upgrade rental car to minivan because of all the luggage, a minivan which turned out to have apparently problematic brakes. Every time we stopped or slowed down a terrible grinding sound would roar through the car and the little red "brake" light would come on. Got replacement the next day from company that was less than sympathetic and which did not want to take responsibility.

3. Arrived at my sister's house that night where we were staying after airport/car incident. It was midnight. She left the key in an inconspicuous place for us but it was so inconspicuous that even we couldn't find it and there were no lights on anywhere. After 1/2 hour of looking and 25 messages to her cell phone, we left and got a hotel room at the hotel we were checking into Friday.

4. The room had only one bed. My parents slept in two rollaways that were brought up and we looked like the family of Charlie Bucket from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, all laying around in different beds crammed into one room like we haven't moved for the last 20 years.

5. I woke up with one of the most horrendous migraines ever on Friday morning, the day we were supposed to shop for my brother-in-law's coming home party. (I think I did not hydrate enough when we traveled Thursday.) Unfortunately I didn't catch the headache with my migraine stuff by the time we had to leave and despite taking it every four hours, I felt like my head was going to explode and I was going to keel over.

6. Annoyed my shopping-partner-mother to no end because I was moving at a snail's pace. Went to Target, lunch at a BBQ place, Sam's Club, Party City and a grocery store. The trip should have taken two hours. It took six. (My dad returned to my sister's house by the way and found the key in the daylight. Exactly where she said it would be.)

7. At the grocery store, in my dazed and confused migraine state, I unloaded all my groceries onto a conveyor belt in a line that wasn't open and stood there waiting for the cashier that never came (in my defense-the sun was shining on the light and made it look like it was on!!). Unfortunately, a few others joined me in line and when I realized it wasn't open, all the other lines that were open had gotten real long and the guy behind me yelled at me, "You made me do this!"

8. I accidentally took another woman's groceries and headed out of the grocery store the wrong way, knocking into a man's cart along the way like a complete drunkard.

9. Saturday, on the day of the party, we all had forgotten to get directions to the restaurant. An argument ensued between the men about what to do (my uncle: "I think I know where it is, let's just drive and figure it out!" my husband: "We can't be late! We're setting up!" and there were some expletives uttered.) So we decided in the end to have my dad take a cab and we would all follow.

10. Smart, right? But when my dad got out of the cab, we had all forgotten we put the stroller in the trunk. The stroller drove away and we didn't know the cab company's name or anything about the cab.

11. That was my only place to keep Poops when we were setting up for the after-party at my sister's house (or when we went anywhere, really). He got into everything as we raced around to set up everything in 20 minutes before everyone got there. It took a village. I was a sweaty mess.

12. We spent Saturday night and all of Sunday calling every cab company we could find in the yellow pages and talking to our hotel to find out which cab companies work there. My cousin had somehow remembered the name of the cab and it was so small it wasn't in the yellow pages (it was in the white). We left a message. I summoned the universe to deliver the stroller to us, and would you believe, the cabbie called us back Monday (a miracle!!) and brought it to us. Of course, it was about 1/2 hour after we had already bought another one.

13. Finally, why wouldn't we decide to have fish the night before we left to fly home? Let's just say someone in our party had faulty fish and we'll leave it at that. It was not a good day to travel for that person to say the least, and we all had to be out the door and on the road by 4 am for our early flight.

So in sum, it wasn't a trip, it was an adventure! It's a good thing we can all laugh about it now! Happy TT!!




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