Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Five day was just not going to be a long enough visit. There were still friends the kids did not get to spend time with and people we grown-ups wanted to see as well. So, why not extend our visit 2 days, leaving for Germany on Friday instead of on Wednesday, as originally planned? I knew one big reason why not: trying to fly with confirmed seats (standby really) on a Friday is a terrible idea. Fridays and Sundays are notoriously bad days for standby passengers. But David checked the flight and said it looked very good. So, I agreed, albeit reluctantly, and Wednesday afternoon found the older kids thrilled to be at our former neighbors the Honeys for a sleepover, David having lunch with colleagues from work and me just relaxing reading a book I got from our Borders shopping spree.

Then came the phone call. David called from the car at 3:30 and said, "I just got a horrible phone call from work. Lufthansa employees are striking in Germany and the flights from Atlanta to Frankfurt are canceled Thursday and Friday (also Sunday we would discover)." This would mean that we would probably not get out of Atlanta for almost another week. David needed to be at work Monday and we didn't want to overstay our welcome with friends. So, I said, "OK, when is the flight today?" David replied, "6:00pm." "Well," I sighed, "Let's get moving."

Somehow, I still don't quite understand how we did it, we got packed, tore a tearful Micaela and James away from their friends Devynn and Jared, said our goodbyes, got in the car and were headed into rush hour Atlanta traffic within 1/2 hour. We had two hours to take what I figured would be a 1-1/2 hour trip to the airport, return the rental car, check our luggage, get through security, board the little airport transport train and arrive at the gate. Would we make it? And all I could think was, "Everyone who is trying to fly from Atlanta to Frankfurt on Lufthansa in the next 5 days is going to be there. Even if we make it in time, we won't get on the flight."

It was bumper to bumper through Atlanta and I thought, "That's it. At what point do we give up and just head back to our friends' house and skip this needless trip to the airport?" Then a colleague of David's called and suggested that we just leave our rental car in hourly parking and he would drive down to the airport and return it for us if we got on the flight. Hmmm, that would save us 30 minutes. Then traffic cleared up quite a bit. Was the impossible going to turn out to be possible?

We checked our luggage at the counter and the agent said, "I can't make you any promises, but right now you have seats." Amazing. We figure David got inside information about the flights being canceled that hadn't yet made it to the paying passengers. We got to the gate quickly and boarded immediately. The kids were miffed that they had to sit in coach and couldn't see the movie over the tops of the seats. It was a stupid drama for grown-ups anyway.

For some odd reason, and I never question the mysterious workings of the universe when they are to my benefit, I was assigned the only Business Class seat for the six of us. David told me to just take it and believe me, he didn't have to say it twice. I got to watch the film of my choice and lounge quite comfortably while David sat in the back with his four children. After the flight, two people approached him to compliment him on how well behaved his four children were. David didn't bother to tell them that it was because they were exhausted from so many sleepovers and crestfallen at having to leave Atlanta early.