Fasten Your Seatbelts

On this blog, what you see is what you get. I don't find the need to embellish my life because it is apparently impossible for us to do anything in the normal sequence.

Fasten your seatbelts. Here is a two hour snippet of my day:

Hubbie was booked on his emergency trip to Stockholm this afternoon. We woke up and get the kids ready for school. We walked them to class in the gorgeous sunshine. For one of the first times since we moved here, I felt like we had a family moment.

After a quick trip to the grocery store, the plan was to go home, pack the car, get gas, have lunch at a local burrito joint and head to the airport.

Instead, I heard a boatload of cursing from the back of the house, ending with I'm not going today!

WTF?

Hubbie's passport? Expired. By two weeks.

It is two hours before flight time.

Frantic calls to the Swedish consulate. They say get down here. We rush to the consulate.

Hubbie fills out the paperwork.

Oops! The woman forgot to tell us we needed photographs.

Back in the car to find the photo store that is a few blocks down the corner. No address given, of course.

The Gods of Travel smile on us as we end up on the correct side of the street with half a car length's space to park on the corner.

Hubbie runs in. I pray we don't get a ticket or rear-ended.

Hubbie runs out. Burn rubber back to the consulate.

More dodgy parking on our end. Hubbie runs in to the consulate.

It's an hour and a half before flight time.

I call Coal Miner Heather to blow off some steam. My eyes are popping out of my head because illegally parking in front of an embassy is never a good idea.

I see Hubbie come jogging out of the embassy.

I hop out of the car and give him a thumbs up. Are we golden? No, he shouts. The girl forgot to tell him about the payment restrictions. The same girl who forgot to tell us about the photos also forgot to mention that payment for the passport is cash or personal check. Not credit card. Not a debit card. They will take a personal fucking check, but not a debit card.

We all know how Hubbie feels about personal checks.

So Hubbie goes blazing by in his sweater vest to find an ATM.

Then back again into the embassy.

Then, back out.

This time we are good to go.

We make it to the airport. Hug hug, kiss kiss. Get your ass inside.

We made it exactly one hour before flight time.

One would think this is the end of our tale, but remember what I said? That nothing ever goes normally?

Hubbie is on a standby ticket. The flight? Wide open. Until they start boarding. More standbys show up. Then more. Hubbie's name? Moving down the list in a hurry.

They called the couple in front of Hubbie. They are a party of two. There is one seat.

The man? Is a pilot. He wants the jumpseat. Then his wife could take the regular seat, and they would be on the flight.

The jumpseat? It was broken.

So, Hubbie got on. The very last seat on the flight.

In the end, for all the stress and craziness we had incredible luck. We got the temporary passport. Hubbie made his first flight. He got upgraded to business class on the second leg.

I am absolutely exhausted. You?