Have you ever had one of those days?

On Sunday, May 5th, Tami and I left for a weeklong vacation. This is a trip we've done for the past four years so we know the routine, or so we thought. We were up early and left our house by 7:15 a.m. for a 9:25 flight. We decided to use long-term parking, which is where the fun begins. We've used the long-term lot in the past, and I know right where it's located, but for some reason I missed the turn-off and wasted 10 minutes turning around. No big deal—we had plenty of time. After we parked our car, we headed for the buses, and an employee asked Tami if we were getting on the bus. Duh, that's why we're here. We boarded the bus and were off to the terminals. I found it odd that the bus didn't stop at Terminal A but told Tami that he must have asked people while they were getting on the bus which terminal they were going to. As he pulled up to the first stop I told him that we were going to Terminal C. He gave me a strange look and said, "Not on this bus. I only go to Terminals B and E." He told us we could go upstairs and catch a terminal link bus and it'd take us to Terminal C. So we hurried to get our luggage off the bus and headed to an elevator that would take us to the street level to catch the link bus. While standing there waiting on the elevator, Tami looked at me and asked, "Where's our camera?" In our hurry and the frustration of the moment I had left our expensive camera in the luggage rack on the bus. I hurried back outside, but sure enough the bus was long gone.

I immediately called the Remote Parking office—thank goodness for cell phones with internet access—and explained our situation. They contacted the bus driver and he confirmed the camera was there. “If they wait there, I’ll catch them on my next trip around,” he said. We were relieved and knew it would take about 30 minutes for the bus to return. I told Tami that we should check our luggage in and she could go to the gate while I waited for the bus. We proceeded to the airline check-in and ended up getting the slowest airline worker I’ve ever seen. Inside I was nervous, because I knew the bus would be coming, but I couldn’t leave because they wouldn’t take our luggage unless I showed my photo ID. We finally sent our luggage on its way and I hurried back downstairs. I waited for bus number 60 but was not seeing it, so I called back to the office. They were confused because it had passed just a few minutes prior. I explained our luggage check-in and asked how long before it was going to return. She said 25 minutes. We had 50 minutes until our flight left, so I thought, “I’ll wait.” You know, there are times in life when the clock moves so slow, and then there are times in your life when the clock really moves fast. This was one of those times. I waited and waited and no bus…now we were down to 25 minutes until our flight would leave and I still had to clear security. I finally gave up and called the office one last time to tell them I could not wait any longer. I was told the bus would be there in less than 5 minutes but I just couldn’t risk it.

I hurried up to security and now there was a line. It took me 15 minutes to clear security and I was sweating and sick. Tami was going to be sitting on a beach drinking a refreshing drink while I was trying to find another flight. I cleared security and hurried to the gate, and as I was walking up to the ticket line they looked at me, frustrated, and said, “There you are!” I apologized and said the plane could have left without me because my wife was on board and they told me no, the tickets were in my name and they would have had to pull our luggage before the plane would have been permitted to depart. What a morning.

Now there are those who would try to find every excuse as to why things happened the way they did. I want you to know that what happened was just life. We have those days….when it seems as if everything that happens is just not right. That’s life! The devil wasn’t out to get us, God wasn’t doing something to punish us, it was just our choices and mistakes that led to a crazy day. We made it safely to our destination and had a wonderful time! Thanks for all of your prayers while we were gone.

Oh, one last thing, while checking into the hotel, the travel agent at the resort approached and informed me that our return flight to Dallas did not exist…..LOL! That’s a story for another time!