Close...But Not Close Enough!

This is an airplane, much like the one that Freyja and I are supposed to be sitting on right this very minute, flying to the Atlanta, GA airport with a short lay-over and then connecting to a second plane which arrives in Newport News, VA.

But, we're not on it.

This morning, despite the fact that I had set my cell phone alarm clock, checked it to make sure it was on, and re-checked it just to make sure...it didn't go off. How does that happen???

Thus, when mom yelled up the stairs at 5am, wanting to know why I wasn't awake...I jolted out of bed and the insanity and pandemonium began. I thought I was going to have a !@#$ing heart attack.

It literally felt like that scene in "Home Alone" where the family has a power failure in the middle of the night and their alarm clock gets reset, therefore not waking them up. They jolt out of bed one hour before their entire 20 member extended family's flight is supposed to take off from New York to Paris on Christmas, and scream "We slept in!". Everyone in the house immediately starts haphazardly running all over the place, throwing luggage, tripping on things, etc. until they all pile in the car and get to the airport and then to their gate, just in time.

The good thing, or at least I thought so as we were on our way to the airport, was that last night I got everything ready, down to the last detail, so that this morning would run flawlessly (obviously not). As soon as I jumped out of bed, even though we were running very behind, all I had to do was dress Freyja and I in the clothes that I had already laid out, drag the luggage downstairs, get some things out of the fridge and throw them in my carry-on, and strap ourselves and our luggage into the car, and we were off. We still had a chance of making it!

With speed-demon superwoman grandma at the wheel, we were at the airport with more than 30 minutes to spare. While I went inside with the checked luggage, mom took Freyja out of her car-seat and strapped her into the stroller. It was going to be fine!

I got up to the counter with our luggage, holding the boarding passes and check-in information I had already printed out from the Internet, hopeful that we'd beat the clock...and the guy wouldn't check the luggage. He was condescending and sarcastic. I look at the clock...and it says I have 30 minutes until take-off. He tells me that they have already taken the luggage carts to the plane a couple of minutes ago, but that if I want to take our luggage onto the plane, I can do that.

Right. I'm going to single-handedly carry two suitcases, a carseat, an umbrella stroller, a diaper bag, and a child through airport security and through the jet-way onto the airplane. Not going to happen. I am awesome, but not that awesome. Sorry.

He tells me we'll have to fly stand-by on the next two flights, which are completely booked (what? why bother?), or our tickets won't be any good. The ticketing agent then disappears and never comes back. So, I called superwoman Heidi and she arranged a later flight by phone. Evidently there were open seats on the next two flights, and we didn't have to fly stand-by. This dude was obviously clueless about his own airlines policies, or else he was just hostile about his job and wanted someone to take out his anger on. Who knows?

So, we're home again. Freyja is back in bed, I'm back in my pajamas, the luggage is still in the car, and I didn't have a heart attack.

But, almost.