“You snooze, you lose.” Going Home (Day 8)

Another travel day.  Another long day ahead of us.  So many questions.  Will the kids sleep on the airplane?  Will we have an extra seat for Caris again?  At least we’ll be home soon.  A place where the kitty litter is all over the ground and their cat hair is all over the ground.  Home sweet home.

Here we are getting ready to pack up the car.

And already, the pants are coming off.

We had a little time to play before heading to the airport.  We were going to go to the playground just before we leave.  Of course we have to walk there, and Caris didn’t want to walk.

She is one stubborn little girl.  She was standing there crying for at least five minutes before someone picked her up and carried her to us.  I wanted to see how long this girl would have stand there.

Here’s the car rental office.  Right next to gas station, convenience store and Carl’s Jr.

All 3 kids sitting the back seat.  Not much leg room, but more than when they came here.

Waiting for the plane at our gate.  Actually, that mob of people there is 4 gates at one end of the airport.  They all share the same doors.

Let me tell you the story of how we got here. 

When we first get the airport, there’s a line formed to check-in.  There’s a separate line adjacent to ours that’s marked “baggage drop off.”  Since we had so many bags, our bags were there.  When we got to the front of our line, I opened up the roped off area to get my bags.  Since we’ve been here, we’ve been hearing that a flight to Minneapolis has been canceled.  As I’m pulling my bags over to the baggage check point, I notice this couple gets in the “baggage drop off” line.  As we’re getting our bags checked by airport security, this couple starts pushing their way forward trying to get to a counter.

I know American travelers when I see them.  They tend to be the rude travels; the people with a sense of entitlement.  Soon after this couple goes forward, another 40 or 50 people start streaming through this “baggage drop off” line.  There are at least another 20 legit people who were already waiting in the real check-in line, yet all these people, all Americans, decide to get in front of all these people waiting.  This is the canceled Minneapolis flight.  No sorrys said.  No apologies.  Just the “I need to talk someone at the counter.”

Eventually, Delta funnels all these people to a separate line.  At least I was already at the counter.

As always, I hate the security checkpoint.  But this being Mexico, I didn’t know how much more stringent they would be than the U.S. (they weren’t).  There’s a single file line stretching out into the hallway for the security checkpoint.

We go to the back of the line.  Before we get to the security checkpoint, I wanted to put our water container inside my backpack.  In the 10 seconds that lapsed as I was attempting to put my container away, a little gap opened up in front of us.  There were already 15 or 20 people behind us in the line.  However a group of people starting walking up thinking we might not be in line because of the gap that formed.  Now remember this gap was only there in that 10 second span that I was in my backpack.  This group found out that all these people were in line and they went to back to the end…  Except for this one lady (or maybe couple).

At the time, I didn’t really know if she was in line already in front of us or was in the group coming from the back.  I went back to my backpack and making sure the kids were behaving.  Yvonne proceeds to apologize to her about the gap, and tells the lady in front we were in line.  Her response:

You snooze, you lose.

I did not hear this, cause if I had, there would have been some drama in the security checkpoint.  It’s probably a good thing I didn’t hear it either.  Yvonne on the other hand was taken aback by that comment.  She kept her composure well, especially knowing how sharp a tongue she can have.  I’m kind of proud and disappointed at her at the same time.  Disappointed that she didn’t lay into this woman.  But proud that she could actually control herself.  All she said was, “that’s a very American thing to say.”  The woman responded with “that’s right, I’m American.”  Oh man if I had heard that conversation, we’d be sitting in the Mexican jail right now.  I would have a started a riot in that airport. Yvonne said that the people behind us were apparently annoyed at this woman too. 

I was too busy making sure the kids were okay and fiddling around with my backpack and worrying about getting through this security checkpoint.  If I had the chance, I would have laid into her.  But I guess God didn’t want us sitting in jail when we should be flying home.

Best thing though is that we passed her up in the security checkpoint anyways.  Since we had kids, they put us in a different x-ray scanner.  We were able to get through the checkpoint a few minutes before her even though she cut in front of us.  A small victory.  I still rather yell at her, but I guess I’ll have to take this.

Caris putting the G1 to good use.

Caris with her new car, Chuki.

The flight was complete full on the plane.  We were hoping for an open seat so Caris could sit.  Instead, she sat in my lap for the whole 3 hours.  For those of you who don’t have toddlers, or never flew with a toddler in your lap for 3 hours, you might want to consider buying that seat for your 22 month old child.  Maybe other 22 month old kids are different, but Caris is a handful.  It was a good thing she was really tired when we got on the plane.  At least she was able to sleep in my lap half the time.  Caris can really only keep her attention on an activity for about 5 minutes.  After that, it’s on to the next thing to try to keep her attention.  And then the next.  The best thing for her to do is eat, which I tried to extend as long as possible.  But there’s only so much snacks she wants to eat before she just wants to run around.

What makes things even worse is that they didn’t give us our stroller at the gate.  We did a gate check, but they don’t let you get your gate check-in on international flights.  So that means we have to carry all our carry-ons, a car seat and 3 kids through customs before we can get stroller at baggage claim.  So much trouble.

A long day of traveling.  But we’re home safely.