Travel | Taking it a Step at a Time

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)

Full House…. One of DC’s favorite TV shows. He especially enjoys Stephanie’s classic line; “How Rude!” It must be the delivery because DC really doesn’t have any notion of “rude” or what it means. He says what he says, the way it makes sense to him. He has no concept of what rudeness is.

Years ago, in the grocery store he wanted to get past someone, he just said, “Move”. I explained to him that this was rude and that he should say “excuse me”. And he did……. to every single person we passed in the store, every single one of them. He now knows not to tell anyone to “move” because I told him not to. He doesn’t understand why and just knows that it’s rude, not really knowing what “rude” means and not really being able to relate it to other things he does that can be seen as rude. It’s rude because Mom said so, period.

A few years ago, we were in Las Vegas. We were walking down the street and I was holding DC’s arm trying to navigate him through the hordes of people made worse by construction, on the sidewalks. He also has no awareness of what’s around him, in the sense for example, he will stand up in a restaurant to put his coat without looking around to see if he’s going to hit a waitress or a customer with his arms. He just doesn’t have the thought process to consider who might be around, who might be in the way, who he might knock over. He just does what he has to do. I was so preoccupied with making sure he wasn’t in anyone’s way, bumping into them or hitting anyone when the arms started flapping, that I didn’t notice the people out on the sidewalks handing out their “marketing materials”. I looked down and DC had a handful of business cards, all with photos of women on them. He wasn’t looking at them, he was taking them because they were handing them to him, and we always do what we are told. I took them and tossed them in the trash. I couldn’t just tell him not to take them. He wouldn’t know what to do when the next person tried to give him something, and that would result in a bit of a breakdown. Mom said not to, but they are still giving these to me. That sort of conflict in this head is never pretty. So I told him that if anyone else tries to hand him anything else, that he should be polite and just say “No, Thank you” and not take it.

In Vegas, the people handing out “literature” stand about 7 or 8 in a row and you run into another 7 or 8 of them every 10 feet. So DC, following the rules, proceeded to walk down the street, screaming “NO THANK YOU!” at each and every one of them, all the way down the street, the entire time we were there, anywhere we went.

That’s my boy! He IS NOT rude 🙂 I did manage to get him to lower his voice a bit as the days went on and he was very proud of himself for being so polite – even though he really doesn’t understand what that means either. It’s all still a work in progress………………….