First Leg of Florida Trip

It's Monday and we are getting ready to head out for Bangor airport for the trip to Florida. We have prepared very carefully for the plane ride, by not bringing any bags, because they charge you now for every bag you check. We have stuffed our clothes into two backpacks, just the essentials, minimal clothing as most of the time is spent, at my fathers house, in the same outfit for a week.

So off we go, but we have to make a couple of stops before hand. My wife has to get a book at the library. I have to cash a check at our bank, then we head over to visit my wife's mother for a while and then drop off our other car to be serviced, and then drop off a check, on our way to the airport, at the funeral home. Just doing a couple of things before hand, why make the trip to the airport less stressful. Oh and I almost forgot, I had to get gas in the car that we were dropping off for service.

We finally do all of those little jobs and now we are really on our way, but now we don't have any extra time for the unexpected problems that pop up. Like following someone who is going 10 miles per hour under the speed limit, which only happened 4 times on our way. And of course we ran into a little road construction, that by the time we got pass that my wife and I were screaming at each other for about 10 miles or so. And what is with it, that no one is in a hurry when you are. What's up with that?

Well we finally made it to the airport and parked our car and made our way to the terminal to check in. First stop is security, no problem we have been here before and know the drill, no shoes, no metal and no bomb jokes.

I go through no problem, but my wife is having a problem, they want to check out her bag. So they hand her bag over to another agent and he starts to pull everything out of her back pack, which she had taken hours to pack so that everything fit. The agent pulls out a tube of suntan lotion and it was over the limit. That was the problem. My wife shoves all of her clothes back in the pack, which now looks like it is going to explode and off we go to wait for the flight.

I have come to the realization that I am getting old and cranky, because as we were sitting and waiting to board I kept picking out people that I hoped I would not be sitting next to, or for that fact, not sitting anywhere near me. The couple with the screaming kid, forget about it. The guy who looks like he had never met a shower he liked. The three middle aged women who just kept laughing, way to cheerful for me.

And as I looked around I noticed that there was a whole bunch of people with big giant bags, not the little carry on that you were suppose to be bringing on, you know the ones that people have to shove into the overhead compartments to make them fit. The ones that crush the right size carry on that I was bringing. I am just a fool, because I am the one who follows the rules and you know what I get Nada, not a pat on the back, not a that'a boy, nothing. And do these people who carry oversize bags onto the plane, do they get reprimanded, of course not. "Have a nice flight." is what they get. In Willie's world they would be singled out and ridiculed. "Attention everybody, this moron does not know that this steamer trunk that he is trying to bring aboard is a carry on. We are going to place him against the wall and shoot him for thinking that he could carry this bag on and not pay the piper. Thank you. Take them away."

Oh well I'm the fool I guess. Any way we got on the flight and it was uneventful. Except for no magizines and the women who sat in our row who did not say on word to us. How can you set next to someone for three and half hours and not say one word. Who does she think she is Helen Keller.