The Seven Year Itch

Seven years. That's how long I've lived in Iowa. Seven winters under my belt with only 1 killed deer/car on my record. A few fishtail drives, but nothing even this Vegas girl couldn't correct. I've shoveled lots of snow. I've learned to balance (sort of) on slippery sidewalks.  But today, I met my match.

After my sweet husband shoveled 13 inches of "heart attack snow" in several 90 minute shifts to dig our cars out, he told me to be sure to take the short side of our alley out this morning.

Sidebar: Clark received a Paw Patrol shovel from Aunt Tammy & Uncle Bob for his birthday last year. He has been talking for 11 months about getting to shovel snow with it. So while Daddy huffed and puffed and braved the elements, I inched our door open and let Clark "shovel" the deck from our warm kitchen. Ryan came in after(what we thought was) his final hour of shoveling, drenched in sweat and several layers of clothing, catching his breath, and very kindly made a HUGE deal about thanking Clark for shoveling the deck for him. Without missing a beat, our 2 year old patted his Dad's shoulder as he walked away, and nonchalantly said "Oh, you welcome, Daddy!'

I was up extra early thanks to insomnia, so I bit the bullet, got ready, and headed out to my car. That's where things got dicey.

I very carefully reversed straight behind me in order to  avoid the snow bank. Reverse is not my strong gear, so I was very pleased with myself as I switched into drive and turned the wheel. Screeeeeeeeeech. Bumpbumpbump. Ice. And not just a patch - an entire alley COVERED in several inches of very thick, very frozen ice. While my winter driving experience is limited, I have had success reversing when I can't get traction in drive. I'm smart. I can do this. Back to reverse, back to a few feet of motion, bumpbumpbump. Now, instead of 2 wheels stuck on ice, I have managed to get all 4 wheels onto frozen solid water. At least I'm pretty.

By my third attempt, I realized I needed to call in the big guns. Lucky for me, the big guns had been watching from the door and was already headed my way in snow gear, armed with a bright yellow plastic shovel. While he may have been cursing me under his breath, he was very sweetly telling me I could stop apologizing three times per breath. Realizing much faster than I did (he is definitely the brains of this operation) that I was stuck on ice, not snow, he tossed the plastic shovel aside and started pushing the car and my heavy butt while I gunned the gas on the back swing and tried not to run him over on the down slide.

After several attempts, ice breaking, changing drivers, and a lot of screeching and burning tires, my knight in snow gear drove off onto a real road with me slowly skidding down the rest of the alley behind him. Shaken, I made it to my now toasty warm car, buckled up, and slowly drove off. That's the exact moment that I remembered my lunch was at home. Determined to not go back, I resolved to order extra at my daily Starbucks stop to get me through the day. Main roads seemed fine, but my nerves proved to be shot when I saw traces of frozen precipitation on the road to that beautiful double tailed mermaid. Turns out I love my life just a little bit more than my coffee.

Finally completing my 10 minute commute to work an hour after it began, I pulled into my parking spot and breathed a sigh of relief that I was in 1 piece. That audible noise was immediately accompanied by the loud growl of my empty stomach.

Deciding to quench my hunger with a cold Diet Dew, I took a crisp dollar bill out of my drawer and headed to our machine at work. Like always, it took my dollar, had me make my selection, sent the arm up to my requested number, and then I helplessly watched the machine stop in front of my deeply desired caffeine before flashing "sold out" across the tiny screen and returning my dollar in quarters. Two of which, the machine promptly ate while I was loading them to try a different number.

Fighting back tears for the third time today, I took a deep breath and retrieved the not-so-secret keys from their designated spot, opened the giant machine, took my pop, and closed and locked the machine. Still holding the 4 quarters like the frazzled, on-the-verge-of-crying thief that I am. Nope. Not today, Satan. 4 quarters and a post-it note explaining the issue to the designated staff member in charge of these things, caffeine in hand,  I was ready to turn my day around.

Another loud hunger rumble. Hmmm, Diet Mountain Dew isn't that filling when it's the only thing you give your body 4 hours after waking up. Just then, an angel in disguise appeared with a very large piece of succulent, moist, golden, delicious cake. I devoured it faster than a feral momma cat who hadn't seen food in a week, much to the wide eyed horror of the sweet friend who shared. As I was taking my first breath since inhaling the yumminess, I asked "what was that divine syrup you used??" Her horror quickly turned to amusement as she said "Rum. It's a rum cake. I forgot you don't drink - I should have given you half of a piece."

Soooooo, there I was, drunk* at work. Not sure if that was an upgrade or downgrade to my day, but I seemed to care a lot less about living in this God forsaken skating rink after that. Either way, I can attest to 2 things: 1. That darn cake was AMAZING and I would have eaten it all had I not been afraid to call Ryan to tell him I was fired for being drunk at work... at 10am on a Tuesday...after he labored for an hour to get me there on time, and 2. that the 7 year itch IS a thing. At least when it comes to real winter. Anyone know of lucrative jobs on the beach? For Ryan, that is. I'll be home making my new favorite cake.

*I'm like 97% sure I wasn't drunk, but that might be the Rum talking.

Dadgic

In my 30 some years of life, I have been blessed with some amazing fathers. Chief among them are my own father, who I have the immense pleasure of still having to this day. His booming laughter and orneriness really know no bounds. I have the added blessing of having a wonderful bonus dad who I earned when I married his son. His kindness and sweet heart are two of my favorite things in this world. And then there’s the guy who I get the privilege of watching as a father every day; my husband.

I know everyone always says this, especially around Father’s Day, but my husband really is the best dad. I knew a long time ago that he would be a great dad; it’s part of the reason I wanted to marry him. Some things in life you just know, and this was one of those things. 

Even though he didn’t have a ton of experience with kids, Ryan jumped right in and filled his role as Clark’s father so seamlessly. He is loving, patient, fun, silly, calm, funny, and warm. He never shies away from Dad duties. He doesn’t babysit or watch our child; he parents him. Pretty darn well, I might add. While I know that is the baseline from where dads are typically measured, I think it’s a sad but true reflection of how little society expects from fathers.

There has not been a single day in Clark’s 29+ months on this earth where I have had to ask Ryan for help. I know a lot of moms who aren’t so lucky, and I believe that he deserves to be celebrated. From the fact that he has never once complained about missing work to care for our boy, to the joy and squeals that he elicits from our son every day for just walking through the doorway, to what I call dadgic (the magical ability that fathers have to speak the same command a child’s mother has said no less than 18 times, and said child immediately and without question obeys request).

Ryan is the dad who throws Clark up in the air so high it makes my heart sink to my knees, and leaves our toddler breathless from laughter. But he’s also the dad who rocks a scared little boy back to sleep after a bad dream at a ridiculous hour on a work night. And he’s also the dad who makes an unruly toddler serve his time in the corner and apologize to his momma for yelling at her. 

He has instilled a love of music, adventure, guitars, Jesus, humor, and Cardinals baseball in our boy. Ryan has loved Clark since the day he found out he was going to be a father, and has never faltered in his quest for Clark to know how loved he is. There's nothing more a mother could wish for in a father for her children.

Is there anything in the world sexier than a good dad? Maybe a good dad with a killer beard and backwards baseball cap, but that’s a different kind of post ;). Happy Father’s Day to you, my love. Thank you for picking me to raise a family with, and thank you for that sweet little boy who is lucky to call you Daddy. We love you so much!

Pin THIS, Pinterest

I am not a Pinterest mom. I do not understand Pinterest, or how to pin anything, or how to find things I’ve pinned, or how to make my creations look like what Pinterest made look so dang easy. So imagine my delight when 36 hours before the party, I received a text from daycare informing me of the upcoming Valentine’s Day party that included the phrase ‘Bring a dish to pass, and be creative with the theme of Valentine’s Day in mind. We want it to be special.’ Well you know what I want? To buy a tray of cookies and go on with my life. And I also want about a week and a half notice to get that half-hearted gesture off my back.

Genetically speaking, I should be good at this. I mean, my mother is basically the inspiration behind Pinterest. Or at least she should have been. Turkeys made out of suckers, cookies that look like stained glass windows, candy that looks exactly like bacon and eggs…the list goes on. She always cheerfully got me an apron and a chair and let me ‘help’, even if my assistance was more of a hindrance. I try my best to channel her patience in the kitchen…like not dying on the inside when my kid puts dog food in a pan and says ‘I make hot dog!’ while I try to cook one mediocre meal. In his defense, it might taste better than an actual hot dog.

Where I don’t excel is in actually making the ideas come to life. I will spend hours scouring Google for ‘EASY holiday themed treats’, find the easiest and cheapest looking one, head to the store (with a toddler in tow; which should be its own medal eligible event), come home exhausted after a day of work at my fulltime job and spend 45 minutes debating what would be easier: make the stupid treats, or get in the car, drive until we run out of gas, change our names, and start a new life. Daycare gets paid on Mondays, so they won’t be looking for Sarah in Omaha and her creative Valentine’s Day inspired dish to share. 

Aside from the dish, why do I have to sit with a 2 year old for 83 pain staking minutes while he scribbles across 11 store bought Valentine cards with puns about being sweet? He’s just going to give them to 11 more tiny people who also can’t read.

Look, I appreciate that daycare wants to have traditions and parties and make cute little crafts. I love it. It is part of the reason why we chose the daycare that we did – because we knew that our kid’s day would be enriched by these things. The problem I have is WHY I have to participate. I pay them to create this environment. If I wanted to join in, I would apply to work there. 

And here’s my other issue…the perfect little daycare family with the perfect treats that the perfect mom spent 11 hours and $492 creating. They’re 2. They eat rocks. Nobody is impressed with your 12 perfectly pink tiramisus in the shape of the freaking Mona Lisa served on a bejeweled heart platter that you made yourself. Our daycare has just such a perfectly perfect mom, who has no shortage of comments about the rest of us. And so help me Cupid, if she makes one remark about the red pancakes and light syrup (I’m sure her hand pressed sunflower oil that she picked the ingredients for from her perfect white picket fenced yard is a real hit with the toddlers) we bring, I will be on the front page of the paper being arrested outside of daycare for shoving pink tiramisu up her perfect butt.

This is why I hate the holidays. As if I don’t have enough going on in my life, now I have to MAKE crap?! Is there some sort of business that I can pay to make the thing I saw on Pinterest, they’ll deliver it to daycare, and then I can take the credit? Because I would pay good money and compromise my morals for that kind of service.

The Spectacles Spectacle

My husband is the quintessential creative mind. That man, at any given moment, may have no clue where his keys, wallet, or phone are (hint: all different, but equally peculiar places), but he can hear a song for the first time, pick up a guitar, and play it perfectly. This is why it was no surprise to me when he lost his glasses 3 weeks after getting them. That was 8 months ago.

We searched high and low for those glasses that I was sure would turn up during our recent move, but they did not. We’ve found the case, and we’ve looked in the most ridiculous of places…under the bathroom sink, in the trunk of the car, Clark’s toybox…EVERYWHERE.

Since we are approaching the 1 year anniversary of him getting glasses, we have sort of given up on the hunt and filled our time looking for all of the other things of his that he misplaces. The most recent hunt was for his wallet. For Christmas, I bought him a key finder that seems to work really well (and has already paid for itself in time that we would have lost looking), but his wallet has no such beeping GPS.

Around day 10 of the hunt for his wallet, he grew tired of having no driver’s license and no access to his money, so he gave up the fight and cancelled his cards…a GUARANTEED way to find your wallet. Clark and I were sitting in our recliner sharing a granola bar one day when our dumb dog did something that I can’t even recall (but I assure you, it was dumb) that required me to toss Clark and the granola bar aside to come to the dog’s rescue. When whatever it was had been handled (Olivia Pope style), I scooped Clark up and looked around for the other half of our granola bar.

Our furniture is notorious for eating our things – if I had every moment that I’ve ever spent sticking my hands down the sides or flipping it over and pulling the flap to release an avalanche of socks, pens, phones, the remote, and any other puzzling object, I could probably rule the world by now. So, I sat down, reached my right hand down the side of the chair as I had done a million times before, and pulled out Ryan’s wallet full of canceled cards, but the other half of the granola bar was nowhere to be found.

Our dog may be dumb, but she is very food motivated. She can smell a crumb of food under a table, and will incessantly sniff as loud as possible, for whatever length of time it takes for you to get up, move the chair, and let her under. So we figured that the missing snack was probably under the chair and that Mia would have it found in no time. We give her so much credit that isn’t due.

WEEKS went by, and aside from the occasional ‘where in the world?!’ thought, I didn’t devote much of my time to the granola bar mystery. Last week, Clark was missing one of his bowling pins and was becoming increasingly desperate to find it. I got up, flipped the chair over and heard a clank that sounded like keys. Knowing that it couldn’t possibly be keys because ours were accounted for, and knowing that my T-Rex arms couldn’t reach to the bottom, I asked Ryan to come fish out whatever it was I heard. He reached into the inner workings of the couch, and said ‘I feel a lot of things, but not sure what any of them ---‘ and then burst out laughing while he held his GLASSES in his hand. And half of a granola bar. And a bowling pin. And socks.

And in true fashion with the kind of luck that man has, even after residing IN OUR CHAIR for over half a year, they didn’t have a single scratch on them! So, now that he can see clearly, I’m going to have to start wearing makeup again. Doesn’t he look like the cutest, most studious lumberjack you’ve ever seen?

How Spontaneity (Figuratively) Killed The Planner Mom

When you are a parent, spontaneity is not your friend. I am a planner to a fault, and my husband is the very definition of one who flies by the seat of their pants. He loves being spontaneous, so every once in a while, I make a concentrated effort to plan to do something spontaneous. I know – planning to be spontaneous isn’t being spontaneous, but this is the extent of the deal with the devil that I am willing to make. But every once in a while, the stars align for a brief moment in time, and I agree to do something on a whim. These times rarely end well.

Our son has been sporting the haircut of a very angsty emo teen for a couple weeks now, due to the fact that we have noticed a downward spiral with each haircut that he has. The first one was a breeze – he sat up on his dad’s lap, smiled, and patiently withstood the hair cutting process. From there, it became progressively louder and more challenging. Imagine greasing up a feral cat and asking it to sit still and be groomed. Then add blue suckers covered in hair, a lot of screaming, and phones being thrown in the wild animal’s general direction hoping it would enjoy a YouTube video and calm the heck down. Now you have a picture of what our night looked like.

Around 6:30pm last night, we decided to call a salon near our house and see when their next available appointment would be. As luck would (or wouldn’t) have it, they had an opening at 6:45pm. Putting aside the panic that struck the pit of my stomach at doing something so last minute, I forced my most believable smile and against my better judgment said ‘Sure! We’ll take it!’ Grabbing a sucker for my purse to use as a lure for a well behaved, no tears experience, we loaded up and headed toward the salon, discussing with Clark what we were about to do, and being lied to with every utterance of agreement from him about the plan. We walked in right on time, were greeted, and shown to the chair. That is where things began to unravel.

As she pulled out the shiny cape with the fun animals on it, Clark went from cheerful to screaming bloody murder in 0.42 seconds. She, having the same idea as myself, grabbed the basket of suckers and offered him a token of bribery for allowing her to shape up the mop of hair he had on his head. Sans cape, she calmly grabbed the clippers and slowly turned them on, demonstrating to Clark how they didn’t hurt byrunning them across her arms. Convinced this was all a trap, Clark took the sucker in one hand, and with both hands, put a death grip on his hair and made clear his displeasure at the thought of cutting even one strand. Deciding that it was best to take a break, we sat in the lobby and allowed another customer to go ahead of us.

Said customer was a control freak mom and her 8 year old. FORTY minutes later, the mom was still telling our poor stylist how she didn’t like her son’s hair and wanted it even shorter. So the nice stylist cut it shorter. Then the mom wanted his bangs swept to the side. No, the OTHER side. Judging by how important the bangs were to her, I can only deduce that One Direction is hosting auditions in our town today, and those bangs are her kid’s shot at stardom. Bangs swept to the correct side, the son mentioned how itchy his neck was and mom nearly blew a gasket on the stylist for making the son’s neck itch. All I could think about was how this nice girl was probably going to set her scissors down, walk out the door, and never return. She was incredibly patient, washed the boy’s hair, and then sweetly smiled at us and asked if we were ready to try again. I should have asked if she was well versed in performing exorcisms.

90 minutes, many talks, offers of YouTube videos, a water bottle he was allowed to squirt wherever he wanted, and two suckers later, she did the best she could with scissors only while Clark did his best impression of a very angry honeybadger. And while the hair is finally out of his eyes, he looks as if he was the one entrusted with scissors and left unsupervised to cut his own hair. Out of protection for her business, we promised not to use the stylist’s name or salon, as this is not a reflection of her skills and talents. It is, however, a glaringly accurate picture of what happens when you think a spur of the moment haircut an hour before bedtime on a 2 year old is a good idea…

Hostile Work Environment

If you have followed my blog for any amount of time at all, you know that my luck is not the greatest. Mine is a life sprinkled with good fortune in terms of family and irresistible good looks, and terrible in terms of staying upright, my dream to be independently wealthy, avoiding weird illnesses, and other things of the sort.

I did hit a small jackpot in the job lottery and found one that keeps me busy, paid, and overall, pretty happy. In the couple of years that I have been there, I have become the go to person for most things, and enjoy getting to be a helper throughout the majority of days. The problem with being the helper is that when crap goes south, there is nobody to turn to except yourself. And crap always goes south.

I took a much needed day off after Thanksgiving so that we could visit Ryan’s family 6 hours away. After working Wednesday, we hit the road about 4pm with a toddler stowed away – he did a good job both ways overall, but traveling with a toddler just makes it more complicated. After a few days, we made the trip home late Saturday, rested on Sunday, and hit the ground running on Monday. Ready to be back to work, I strolled into the office my usual hour + before another soul arrives, and started answering the swarm of emails that awaited me. Before long, I needed to reach into my top desk drawer to retrieve my stapler that I have to hide because I work with hoodlums who will steal anything left out.

I grabbed the stapler and noticed something small fly off of it out of my peripheral, but didn’t think much of it. As I proceeded with my day, I took inventory of my desk and noticed that something wasn’t quite right. Random pieces of all of my office supplies were flying off every time I picked something up from inside my drawer. I decided to investigate, not knowing that I would never be the same as before saidinvestigation.

Upon an extended look into my drawer, I realized that I had an intruder gallivanting through my things in the form of a rodent. A mouse had been in my desk! And he left so many presents. As I continued to search and remove said presents with bleach wipes, I noticed that this had been more than a quick drop by visit over the holiday weekend – I had a full blown squatter living between the 3 drawers and inner workings of my desk. A mouse was living in my desk and using my nametags as urinals!

Having grown up in the God forsaken desert where the only living creatures were scorpions and tarantulas, I have very little experience with mice. Everyone who I begged to help me asked me if I had any food in my desk, and I kept telling them that I have gum and like 3 werther’s hard candies; 2 of which had been eaten through. 1.) Apparently, my mouse is an 85 year old woman, and 2.) I have food in my house, but that doesn’t mean that people can just show up and say ‘You have food, so I live here now’. That is not how it works! What am I supposed to do? Draft a tiny little subpoena and leave it in my desk with a court date?

Luckily, we have an amazing maintenance director who brought me some traps, told me to put them in the middle drawer and around the walls, and he would show up at 6am to check the traps for me. I think he took one look at me and knew I was no match for a creepy crawly mouse. Day 2 of the hostage situation began with new presents in drawers 1 and 3, and an empty trap in drawer 2. She’s a smart little old lady mouse!More bleach, some prayers, and the trap moved to drawer #3, and I ran for my life.

Day 3, I walked in, set my things down, and slowly opened my bottom drawer with my foot. As it slowly slid open, I thankfully saw no mouse and better yet, no mouse trap! As I rejoiced at the mouse’s day of reckoning, I felt the slightest twinge of sadness for the mouse’s life being over at the tender age of 85, but I technically didn’t kill her. I just ordered the hit that did kill her. Totally different. She’s either haunting me or she left her husband behind, because as I left today, I swear I heard a squeak as I shut the drawer. It either said ‘Rest In Peace, Gladys’ or ‘I’ll exact revenge on your life, Heidi, for killing my dear wife Gladys’.

Adventures in Atlanta

Part of my job calls for travel a handful of times each year; something that aside from being away from my boys, I mostly enjoy doing. This year, I have traveled to Birmingham and this last week, I was in Atlanta. The company I work for spares no expense at these things, so I always end up with a nice hotel room and great food – if you don’t count the 14 hour days, it sort of feels like a vacation!

Looking forward to my stay at a 5 star hotel after being chauffeured in a towncar, I packed my bags and hopped in the car with my boys who were waiting to take me to the airport. For weeks, I had been explaining to Clark that I was going to be gone for a few days, and when he started saying ‘Momma go to Georgia’, I thought the odds for a tear-free goodbye were looking good. So once we arrived at the curb outside the airport, I kissed Ryan goodbye and opened the door to the backseat to see my sweet boy sitting in his carseat with silent tears falling down his cheeks. It was at that moment that I considered quitting my job and never leaving the house again, but reason got the best of me and I somehow mustered up the courage to walk away from the car and through the entire airport sobbing like a crazy woman.

Before long, a plane arrived and it was time to get on it. Trying to shake the sight of those tears on those sweet cheeks, I chuckled to myself after realizing that yet again, my short little legs were granted an exit row seat, with precious inches of completely wasted on me leg room. I believe that makes my total 5 out of 6 flights this year where I received angry glares from tall people as they walked past me to their average leg room seat. After buckling up and following along with the safety card (I take exit row responsibility seriously!), we were taxiing down the runway and in the air! Our captain had told us that the previous flight was smooth except for some storms in Atlanta, so I was expecting more of the same. 

About 3 minutes after being airborne, there was a deafening noise inside the fuselage – alarms were sounding, people were bouncing around while seatbelts were on, we could feel the cargo hitting the floor beneath our feet, and very faintly, we heard the voice of the captain on the intercom. What we couldn’t hear was anything that he said because everything else was so loud. I am a calm flyer – I understand how closely monitored planes and pilots are, as well as how miniscule the odds of anything going wrong are. But nonetheless, I firmly wrapped my hands around the armrests and stared out my window until the gray and black of the massive clouds we were inside of dissipated to calm blue.

Not realizing that my husband was unaware of the ability to text and send Facebook messages from the newer planes, I recounted my harrowing tale and he said ‘You already landed?’ ‘No – we are still in the air’ ‘They let you send texts from a plane now?’ ‘Are you crashing?’ Unfortunately for him, my response to the ‘They let you send texts from a plane now?’ question didn’t send until after I had received ‘Are you crashing?’, so my answer of ‘Yes’ did nothing to comfort him. About the time I had it cleared up that yes we can text, and no we are not crashing, the pilot came back to say, and I quote, ‘Folks, it’s about to get bad, and it will be bad until we are on the ground in 40 minutes.’ And he was not wrong. It was the worst flight I have ever been on, and it’s not until you land after a flight like that that you realize your return flight is Friday the 13^th.

I was more than relieved to see that my hotel room lived up to my hopes, because after a flight like that, I contemplated moving in permanently.

After settling in, I rested up for the next few days, as we had a packed schedule. Wednesday and Thursday were very long and tiring, but overall, it was a good conference. That leads me to the last day, and the prospect of boarding a plane on Friday the 13^th after almost dying on one on Tuesday the 10^th. I woke up like this:

Who gets pink eye in a 5 star hotel, nowhere near a germy little kid? Apparently, I do. Point you, Friday the 13^th. Luckily with my glasses on, it wasn’t terribly visible, so I got packed up and headed down to finish off the week before heading to the airport. My flight was scheduled to leave at 9:45pm, but I had managed to get on standby for the 3:30pm flight. The course ended literally right next to the airport, so it would be a short commute once we were dismissed. A classmate of mine had an app that told him where each plane taking off overhead was en route to, and details about the plane itself. Keeping with the theme of the day, he informed me that my standby flight was the one directly over my head as we unloaded at the airport, meaning I was in for a 6 hour wait until my next flight. Loving airports, I took my time through security, got a snack, and settled in at the gate where this exact flight had left from the previous 6 nights.

As I waited and chatted with those around me, I received a text that my flight was actually going to be from a different terminal, so I would need to take the elevator 3 floors down and board the tram to get to the next concourse over. No problem. I did all of those things, and exited the tram to find that the elevator in the new terminal was broken, and I would have to take an escalator, that I am deathly afraid of, THREE STORIES up to the concourse. Apparently, when you are destined to die on Friday the 13^th, it doesn’t matter if it is by plane or escalator. Hands shaking, I finally stepped on after watching 10 ascending stairs pass me by, held on for dear life, and didn’t look up until I had to jump off so as to not be one of the people on the news who get sucked into the stairs of death.

Having survived that, I endured two more gate changes over the course of 2 hours until the screen at the gate I was at said my home city on it. I sat, along with 50 others, and watched the delay keep growing and growing and growing until it was no longer Friday the 13^th, rather, Saturday the 14^th, and I was still in the airport. The plane that they sent us from Pennsylvania had ‘mechanical issues’ and was delayed four hours, which meant our pilot was ‘timed out’ and had to have a mandatory rest period (good rule!). They assured us not to worry, as they had requested a backup pilot, and our first officer (who looked to be pre-pubescent) was already on the plane. Turns out that when a backup is requested, they have two hours to accept or decline the flight, and then an additional two hours to arrive at the airport. Our super awesome replacement pilot accepted with 7 minutes left in the first two hours, and then the clock started for his two hour window to arrive. This is where things went downhill.

Nobody likes to be delayed at the airport. I had been there for 8 hours at this point, and the people I was sitting with had been there for 15 hours. We all wanted to get home; none more than the older couple who repeatedly loudly announced that the following day was the husband’s 60^th birthday, and he wanted to be well rested before his party. Seriously. That’s a direct quote from the 60 year old. Complaining to all of us was not enough to get things off of his chest, so he called the airline, and obnoxiously pointed his cell phone in the face of every gate agent around, telling them he was getting their photos so that he could have them fired. After hours of listening to this couple act worse than the 4 year old who was also on our flight, a lady who hadn’t said a word prior had enough:

Nice Lady: Why don’t you sit down, shut up, and wait for the pilot like the rest of us?

Birthday Boy: I travel every week –

Nice Lady: Then you should be thankful that you get to travel and see the world! Seriously – that’s ENOUGH!

Birthday Boy: Yeah? Well you’re not getting home tonight!

Second Nice Lady: You need to be thankful that you have a home! All these people are losing theirs to hurricanes and fires and you are being obnoxious about having to wait. So SHUT UP!

Birthday Boy’s Wife: No! YOU shut up! He’s 60 and isn’t going to be able to rest before his party!

With that, we sarcastically all sang him happy birthday; he cringed and his wife beamed with pride, taking all of the credit for organizing this chorus for her husband. It was now 3 hours after the reserve pilot accepted the job, and off of the plane walked the First Officer, who had been sitting on it for six hours waiting for his counterpart, and had now also timed out and needed to rest. It was 2am, our flight had been rescheduled for 6am with two new pilots, and they were offering hotel vouchers and putting people on standby for the 10pm flight the next night. Birthday Boy and his wife took the hotel and the later flight, while the rest of us, including a couple with a small baby, settled in and waited it out.

By 5am, I was bruised from rib to rib from trying to sleep on the airport floor, exhausted from not being able to sleep on said floor, I had been at the airport for 14 hours, and I had freaking pink eye, but I was boarding a plane to head home! It was a much less eventful flight, I had been upgraded to a comfy seat, and I even got the privilege of watching the sun rise over the horizon.

After I returned home to my boys, a co-worker told me about a flight the same day (Friday the 13^th), to Helsinki, whose airport code is HEL, and the flight just so happened to be #666. I am not terribly superstitious, but after my week, HEL no!