There’s No Place Like Home

I am fortunate that DC loves to travel. This was not always the case and for a time I believed we would never be able to go anywhere at all, especially by plane. But now he loves to go everywhere and anywhere.

As much as he loves to go away, he always knows when it’s time to go home. If he knows we are leaving on Tuesday, then we are leaving on Tuesday. If he was offered an extra day in Disney, he would not take it because he is going home on Tuesday. It’s not that he is not enjoying himself, he is. He just knows when it’s time to go home and he wants to go home.

Three years ago we took a trip to San Francisco. With the exception of the off season heat wave, the “salad dressing incident” (as it has come to be known by many of my friends), the evacuation of our hotel and an extremely frightening ride in a taxi, the trip went well.

Evacuating the hotel – San Francisco 2010

We had a great time!

Walking on the Golden Gate 2010

Saturday came and it was time to go home. We had a very late flight, so we spent the day seeing some last minute sights, dinner, and nap and off to the airport to catch our 12:30 am flight home.

Everything went smoothly; bags were checked in, we got through security quickly, we made it to the gate, got DC some snacks for the flight and waited to board.

It was about the time for the plane to begin boarding when the announcement came that the flight had been cancelled! Not delayed, cancelled, due to the crew’s “fatigue” ~ seriously that is exactly what they announced; the crew was fatigued and the flight was cancelled. The next flight out was not until 6:00 am the following morning. This was an already scheduled and sold flight, so chances were they would not be able to accommodate all of these people that just became stranded in the airport.

This was not going to be pretty; DC was ready to go home.

The conversation went like this:

DC the plane is not coming; we have to wait until tomorrow.

“Going home now”

“There’s no place like home”

 No, Bud we have to wait until tomorrow, the plane is broken (I wasn’t going to try to explain “fatigued). Okay, we will go home tomorrow.

“Okay”

Pause……….

“Plane is cancelled, going home now. There’s no place like home”

Mom, going home now. No place like home. Plane is canceled, going home now, there’s no place like home.”

I tried to explain again and again, but as many times as he said “Okay” he went right back into “Going home now, there’s no place like home, plane is cancelled, going home now”

I gave up explaining and tried to ignore it, but he got right in my face and started to get loud “Going home now, there’s no place like home, plane is cancelled, going home now”

The gate was a zoo, with all of the passengers trying to book other flights home. I sat with DC while Doug was in line trying to get us on a flight. There was nothing else I could do for him.  He wouldn’t take any explanation I could give him. It just wasn’t going to sink in.

Now I was also worrying about spending the night in the airport with him. I didn’t think it was going to be easy to get a room anywhere since the entire flight of people would be trying to get a room. We had already turned in the rental car and I was imagining us driving around all night in a cab looking for a hotel with an open room.  Our bags were checked in earlier and we wouldn’t be getting those back tonight so  we had nothing!

And DC was still going on and on……

At this point I saw that Doug had made it to the counter and was working to book a flight. DC was just going on and on so I decided I would share the “joy”. I took DC up to the counter and stood next to Doug.

DC went on and on…..

“Going home today, there’s no place like home, plane is cancelled. Mom! Going home today, there’s no place like home, plane is cancelled, going home today” louder and louder……..

The woman behind the counter looked up at me and said “Oh! I AM Soooooo SORRY!” as DC kept reciting his lines. He kept it up, I tried to explain over and over and he went right on.  She apologized again and on he went.

She was finally able to book us a flight for the next day. And she also threw in a room free of charge (She may have been afraid she would have to listen to this the entire night – I think that “Sharing the Joy” may have paid off a bit……..)

And yes, in this case I agreed with DC… there is no place like home!

Wax Museum – San Francisco 2010

(We’re going to skip over  the next battle in the room, with no luggage, when he refused to go to sleep because he had no PJ’s and one just doesn’t  sleep In one’s clothes, you know)