The Dangers of Getting Out of the House

My trip back from Hungary was a not-so-ideal day of travel. For the first time in my life, my name was called over the intercom in an airport. I was waiting with the wife at her gate since my flight was scheduled (pronounced shedgewooled) to leave (due to a delay) thirty minutes after hers. This prompted a run to my gate where I was very quickly handed some "flight interruption" forms and then escorted through another passport control point and then put on a different flight. Now, instead of Zurich -- where I had no chance of making it home from -- I was heading to Paris -- I wasn't even sure what airline I was flying or what my next flight was. My logic was that Paris has a lot more flights than Zurich to get me home.

At Paris, after bouncing between five different counters -- first Swiss Air, then information, then three different Air France counters (at every one, they had to call a manager over to help), I finally received a ticket on a new flight back to Birmingham. The flight I was intended to catch in Paris was already closing its doors by the time I figured out what was going on; there was no chance I was going to make it. My new ticket had me leaving Paris about 4 hours after I was supposed to be landing in England. Argh.

Once I landed in Birmingham, I cleared passport control and I was waiting for my bag to come out. For the second time in one day, my name was called out -- not over the intercom but by the guy behind me. Creepy. He was there to fill out the paperwork because my luggage was still in Paris. Not a big surprise, that. How he knew it was me, I still don't know.

I made my way to the train station to get back to Hereford, arriving at the platform just in time to watch my train pull away. Argh, again. Next train was an hour later.

But, in the end, I made it home and Boo was fine since her sitter had stayed until my arrival. The baggage guys just called to figure out where the Laracks was at and we cleared up that I actually live at the Lilacs. My bag, and my Hungarian booty -- including some of the best "hot sauce" I have ever had -- should be here this afternoon.

UPDATE: The baggage folks arrived but the tiny little nothing they tried to pass off as my giant roller bag didn't work. Its 10PM now and the call I was expecting to explain where my bag really was never came. Uh oh. Someone scrumped my booty.

UPDATE: Finally, late Saturday, my bag made it home. My booty was in tact -- except for a missing bottle of wine... hmmm.

Cheers!