"If you win the rat race, you're still a rat"!
Johnny Grief told me that was his dad's favorite saying about the states, as we were sitting at the pool party Saturday listening to Kelly and John Arthur strum away the afternoon.
On your mark...
So we were all sad on the flight home. Morgan had woken up saying she didn't want to go to school, or leave "Beeze".
We arrived at DFW and stood in the long Customs line. I knew what was coming. There is a bad dude from Texas named "Ricky Grimm". The have been looking for him for at least three years now. "Mr. Grimm, room 2 please" the officer said. So off to secondary with the family. We waited while two big fat dudes ate snacks, laughed and talked on the phone. The clock was ticking and we only had 20, then 15, then 10 minutes to get our luggage, re-check it, dash to the gate and catch our flight. Down to finally five minutes and fat guy #2 calls my name. He gives me my passport and off we scurry. When we get downstairs our 3 bags are slowly going around the conveyor by themselves. We grab them and dash out to re-check them, stopping quickly to get Morgan's medicine out of her suitcase before we go on. She gulps it down and off to the re-check belt. The guys get our bags and up we go, through security again, shoes off, belt off, you know the drill. Of course Alec has marbles, seashells and Belikin caps in his pockets. Luckily our gate to San Diego was in the "D" terminal, so it was right there out of security. There was a lot of folks just hanging out, so I knew we were delayed. The plane wa being cleaned and fueled from it's last flight so we had time for a snack. We grabbed a couple happy meals and a quarter pounder to go and headed back to the gate. We all sat on the floor eating processed crap, all the while thinking about a lobster burritto from Warraguma.
Get set...
We finally boarded the plane. It was a 757. Why does everyone think no one is behind them on a flight trying to also get to their seats? The flight attendants were edgy and we were still at the gate! After about 25 minutes we all were seated and off we went. It was a smooth flight and we all nodded off. The young man next to me was a Navy SEAL in training and had just finished "Hell Week". He snoozed the entire flight. What a nice young man and he made me think the younger generation still has some redeeming qualities! As we descended into San Diego I started sensing something was up. We made a few turns and all of a sudden we were in complete darkness. I knew we must have gone out over the Pacific and mentioned to mrs. reaper something was amiss. Sure enough the Captain came on and told us we were fogged in, or really "out" of San Diego and would have to land at Ontario Intl. Collectively you would have thought everyone was just diagnosed with termional cancer. A buzz went through the plane. "Oh no", "Where is Ontario?", "But my ride is waiting!". One woman behind me just blurted out "Just land the plane on instruments"! I guess she hasn't seen the two big hills on each side of the runways at Lindbergh Field! Kristine and I just looked at each other and smiled. Back to the Rat Race.
Go!
I work in Ontario, it's about 115 miles from San Diego. Of course I didn't have a car at the firehouse and we landed at 12:15, so I didn't want to wake up the guys and borrow a car. When we got off of the plane and got to baggage claim there must have been two or three thousand people there! Flights all across Southern California were landing at OIA! It was mayhem. American Airlines said they were getting busses to take us to San Diego and they would be there in half an hour. Right! Pull my other leg and it plays "Jingle Bells"! I grabbed the bags and Kris called Hertz. We knew a rental was the only way wew were getting to San Diego before sunlight! She made a reservation and I dashed the half a mile to the rental car area, sweating out "One Barrel" all of the way! There were only two customers ahead of me. I couldn't believe it. I got a car and drove over to the terminal to grab the family. The wait for the San Diego busses was now up to 45 minutes! The kids piled in the car and we drove home, in the fog. We arrived at our doorstep at 2:50AM. At least we weren't on the TACA flight we saw there. They waited on the plane for 9 hours. No Customs at OIA! Mrs. reaper had to go to work at 8 and Alec had school. It was a two pot of coffee morning. I went out to my car with Morgan to go to the grocery store. Of course I started the car to a slow whrrr, whrrr, click, click, click. A dead battery after 2 weeks. Murphy's Law...
Damn I miss Estel's...