There You Have It!

As Volunteer Manager of Field Operations for AARP, I logged thousand of miles traveling throughout the United States. California has two corporate offices, one in Sacramento and the other in Pasadena; with satellite regional offices in San Diego, San Francisco and Santa Barbara. Weekly flights were the norm. I often would fly South West Airlines out of Sacramento, but almost as often would fly out of Oakland. My choice of which airport I would use would depend on the time of day since the distances were about the same. Commute traffic to and from the Bay area was a killer, adding as much as an hour either way, to the normal hour and half trip. This particular time I was in San Diego for a two or three day conference. The meeting finished sooner than expected. My flight home was booked for 5:05 P.M. As I approached the gate I noticed that they had a 4 P.M. to Oakland just boarding. For a few dollars I was able to change my ticket. Settling in my seat, I smiled, pleased with myself for getting an earlier flight. As the plane was taking off my mind left the happenings of the day and jumped ahead. I knew my husband would be pleasantly surprised when I got home an hour before expected. That got me to thinking about the drive home and then I tried to visualize where I’d parked my car at the airport. “No,” I thought, “it wasn’t economy parking; I must have used Park and Fly.” Then realization hit. “Oh my God, I’m not parked at Oakland; I flew out of Sacramento!” I tried to explain to the flight attendant that I needed to get off, that there had been a terrible mistake. “Yes,” I agreed, “I realized that I had a ticket for Oakland, but I really need to go to Sacramento. I don’t want to go to Oakland! I made a mistake.” I was quite adamant and several fellow passengers began looking at me with interest. Commute flights are normally pretty boring. Take off, instructions on how to use your seat for a float in case the plane crash in the ocean, a bag of peanuts and a plastic cup of watered down Sprite. Not much variation. Since the flight attendant wasn’t much help, I demanded to talk to the pilot. I believe in going to the top when you want something important done. “The pilot is busy right now flying this aircraft, perhaps when we get airborne…” People were really looking my way, and I might have heard one man mutter something about old ladies traveling alone. Did you know South West Airlines has a policy against turning the plane around once it leaves the runway? I never knew that before, but it was fully explained to me. The whole scene put me in mind of my Aunt Lettie’s bus trip to bury Uncle Osborn in Wyoming. She was carrying the urn with his ashes in a bowling ball bag, and the driver wanted to put the bag in the baggage compartment of the Greyhound bus…I digress, but that is another story for another time. So here was the situation. The plane would land in Oakland at 5:15 pm and my car was in Extended Stay parking in Sacramento. I decided I should check with my husband. Maybe I could talk him into driving to Oakland to pick me up; it would just be a three or four hour round trip for him. Tomorrow I’d think of some way to get to the airport in Sacramento to pick up my car. I called him from the baggage area and the conversation went something like this. “Hi, Honey,” with a conspiring little chuckle, “Guess what just happened? “I have no idea,” he answered sounding resigned, “but imagine you’re about to tell me.” Not a good sign. “I’m in Oakland Airport, but my car is parked in Sacramento. What do you think we should do?” Did you notice how I made it our problem? I’m pretty shrewd with this reverse psychology stuff. There was a very short pause. As I waited for his response I could hear Jeopardy in the background and then, “I’m going to watch the six o’clock news and I hope you have a good trip.” I sighed, so much for reverse psychology.