On the plane to Flordia to surprise grandma for her 80th birthday. Sounds pretty simple right?
Our family, crazy as it may be planned ahead. My grandpa told Helen that he was having a party for her at their condo building, and that she couldn't be around, my uncle Jim was going to go in the day before, help with all of the party prep, and then my mom, sisters, aunts and I were going to fly in and surprise her at the party. Cute idea. I feel like I've read a book about it. Seen the romcom.
Life isn't always a romcom, but it is a postcard.
While I was at work Thursday it started to downpour, my uncle was already at the airport. His first flight was cancelled, then his second, finally he was supposed to get out very late Thursday night. That got cancelled, and the one and only Teri Jorwic went to get him from the airport, he came back to our house and we tried to get him on a new flight. 5 hours later nearing midnight Nicole finally (after mistakenly booking him on a flight two days later) re booked his flight for very early the next morning before ours. I sent him a text and planned to drop him at the airport the next morning. We got up and got going, ready having lost 3 trip members to flooded basements.
We got in the car at 515 and headed to Ohare- the highway was flooded and so were most of the roads in town. 40 minutes later we gave up and went back to the house and all left together with aunt nancy, who didn't have her boarding pass. Matt was driving us, and went all over Chicago trying to connect to Ohare around the flights. In the mean time half of our flights were cancelled, and then re booked so they were all on the same flight out-they were going to make it.
Nancy and my flight was still on time- miraculously- but was departing in 37 minutes, we were still 10 minutes away from the airport. Meanwhile, grandpa was freaking out and everyone was getting calls about flooded basements and waste water. We got out of our illustrious carriage at 8:12 for our 8:35 flight. We couldn't get aunt Nancy's boarding pass at a kiosk since the flight was so soon, we got in line and for some reason I didn't push through the line. Fail.
We got there and he said that since our flight wasn't late there was nothing we could do except for get on the 2:15 flight hours later. Right as I was rationalizing the purchase and pulling out my wallet, our little home girl came up and put our guy in his plate. She asked if we were already checked in, I had my boarding pass and aunt nancy had been checked in but didn't have her pass (Props Aunt T). We got Nanus boarding pass and went towards security.
This time I don't give a single fuck about what people thought. I cut right to the front of the security line, saying I had a flight that was departing in 12 minutes Andy grandma was 80 today. No resistance from the guy at the front of the line, so I made nanu go in front of me who was hilariously cute and flustered apologizing for my lack of fucks given. We made it through security and literally ran through Ohare. So "Home Alone" it hurt. Ohare and all, and of course we were the last gate.
I must say my trendy four wheel bag came in quite handy. Me and my marathoner aunt made it the damn gate and got on our damn flight. HOLY SHIT.
Talked to the contingent waiting for their 10:30 flight current ground crew is booking me and nanu a rental car and sending me a list of the cheap wine and other Costco necessities for the party. Lets be real, Aunt Nancy and I are going to tear up that Costco and get it all done. Her 5 foot frame owns a Mini Cooper sized Costco cart weekly, and I've been training to be a house husband since I was 8 years old.
All more than happy to do it for our Chickie, ill let you know how it goes.
