I had the alarm set for 4:45am. After snoozing until 5am, I went in for a shower. Elizabeth’s mom, who had agreed to take us to the airport, in addition to watching our dog, house sitting, and watch our oldest son Hendrix, was supposed to arrive at 5:15am. Even though, we technically didn’t need to be on the road until around 5:45am to get to the airport with a comfortable amount of time, it was important that we take into account any weekday morning traffic that may be present. I always like to arrive at the airport 45-60 minutes before boarding, to get some breakfast or lunch at the airport, then be unnecessarily nervous about the flight, while sitting at the gate. With a boarding time of 6:45am for our first flight to Los Angeles, I wanted to arrive at the airport around 6am.
As I came back into our bedroom, my back up alarm had just gone off at 5:15, and Elizabeth told me that her mother texted her and said that she was just leaving La Jolla, which was about 20 miles away. She said that her mom’s alarm clock didn’t go off and that she woke up on her own. There has been a time or two in the past that Elizabeth’s mom has proven not to be prompt with her arrival. She also says that she goes to bed at 7:00 pm and wakes up everyday at 4:00 am (an excuse that she regularly made, for not being able to watch the kids, so that Elizabeth and I can go on a date night), I was hoping that it was finally going to benefit us, in getting to the airport on time. When she arrived at 5:59 am, I was tense and livid. I had been so distracted with her tardiness, that I hadn’t double checked that I had everything, I hadn’t had have my breakfast, I was just ready to get out the door.
As soon as she arrived, we rushed to get the baby car seats into her car. While the seats sit flat in the back seat of our Mitsubishi Eclipse, the puffiness of the seats in the back of her mom’s Camry made the transition of the seats slightly difficult. We struggled to latch the seats to the hooks and my calm demeanor was dithering into a demanding urgency. One of my biggest fears is missing a flight and it was starting to appear that it was a possibility in this case. Our flight was set to leave at 7:15 am, and the rule of thumb is to arrive at least an hour before take off.
It was just our luck that we got everything locked up and got out the door at 5:59. The airport is only around 10 miles away, but being familiar with morning traffic, due to my daily commute, I knew that 10 miles could equate to an hour in traffic. As we backed out of the driveway, Elizabeth’s mom says, “How do I get to the airport from here?”
Now wait a second, Elizabeth was raised in San Diego, her mom has been living part time in San Diego for close to 25 years, and she offered to drive us to the airport. How does she not know how to get there? As I began to guide her, she and Elizabeth started having small talk, like we weren’t running 45 minutes behind schedule. Elizabeth’s mom mentioned again, that her alarm didn’t go off, which isn’t something that you want to hear from someone that naturally wakes up at 4am. I tell her to focus on getting us to the airport. In between, my guiding her like an amnesiac taxi driver, she brings up the time that she dangerously drove us from her place in Northern Pennsylvania to Philadelphia, when we forgot our flight times, a few Christmases ago.
I didn’t have time for nonsense, I wanted us to get to the airport, so that we can get a Cinnabon and relax, before getting on the plane. I tirelessly guided every turn as Elizabeth screamed from the back seat, not to stress her mom out, while also telling Hendrix how much she was going to miss him. As the airport entrance approached, I told her to turn right. Not paying close enough attention to her driving, I let her take us up the arrivals ramp, where all of the doors said baggage claim. Confused by this, I frustratedly explained that we needed to go to the departures ramp of the terminal. As her mom, drove around the banked road, back around to the entrance of the terminal, she started heading right, towards the arrivals entrance again, then had to back up in the road, to get back to the departure entrance.
When we finally arrive at the curbside, I had no time for long drawn out goodbyes. In my experience, I never have a smooth trip through security and I am almost always running to the gate, even when I give myself more than enough time to arrive. I gave Hendrix a hug and told him that I loved him and after briefly thanking her mother for the ride, I started heading to the check-in desk.
Elizabeth was taking her time giving hugs and talking to her mom. As I looked back, she gave me a look like I was being insensitive, but my insensitivity was going to get us to our gate on time, and we weren’t going to have to reschedule our flight. I looked around the terminal for the American Airlines check-in desk. While there didn’t seem to be many travelers around, there were a few banks of kiosks where people were performing the self check-in. The only desk that I saw open was the priority line, and when I asked the clerk if she was open, she waved us over.
It was early in the morning, and I was under a lot of stress, but the representative seemed a little annoyed to be helping us check in. There is supposedly rules about checking in at the desk when you are traveling with an infant, so it wasn’t like we could just go to the kiosk. Besides, we were checking in the stroller, so that we didn’t have to bring it on the plane. While I thought that we were running late, the representative assured us that we would have plenty of time to make it through security and to our gate before takeoff. When we asked, the clerk informed us that we would have to request a bassinet seat for our overseas flight at the gate in Los Angeles.
She printed our tickets, then we took our tickets over to the security line. The guard, noticed that Elizabeth was traveling with Escher in the carrier, and he allowed us to go through the priority line. There were still a few people in front of us, but the line seemed to move quickly as we took off our shoes and coats, then removed our laptop and tablets from our bags. Elizabeth was able to walk through with a pat down, while I was brought through the x-ray scanner.
After smoothly making it through security, we stopped for a bottle of water, then walked down to our gate. We still had about 30 minutes until boarding and Elizabeth started trying to call her bank and Paypal to get refunded the money that was illegally taken from her account. As we started thinking about how this could’ve happened, we thought that it could have been the result of her computer getting repaired and then stolen out of her mom’s car with her passwords saved and autofilled. It’s possible that she had her credit cards and paypal autofilled and who ever had her computer was taking advantage of their access to these details.
Boarding was starting and since the infant gives us priority boarding, we headed to the front of the line with my backpack, Elizabeth’s roller bag, and a second hand bag. We packed things into the undersized overhead compartment and prepared for a quick flight up the coast to Los Angeles. Things were still a little tense with Elizabeth, but I was finally calm and comfortable, now that we were actually on our first plane and we hadn’t missed it.