Now Departing....

"NOW DEPARTING" (My trip to the airport) A movement in 3 parts.

Some days are so extraordinary that you must explore them from different perspectives to fully understand them. I choose to approach my day today in three parts.

Part I. Ye Gods....the details

So here I am, with an international flight at 6:25 tonight, all completely packed and ready with my 4 bags (shut it, anyone who thinks this is too many...I don't have time to deal with you today).....and my friend (who wants to remain nameless here) who was taking me to the airport shows up at 3:45 as planned ("That's so early!," you say. I know.).

Meanwhile, Hurricane Alex is wreaking havoc on the Houston weather patterns, and we are experimenting some serious schizophrenic weather: No rain, followed up by mild rain, followed up by rains that would make Noah question his faith, followed by 5 minutes of sun, repeat. So my friend shows up in the flood part of the whole thing, and I (bravely) loaded my loads of luggage into her wanting SUV, 2 kids in tow. All good.

Then. We get in, start to back out of my driveway, and her driver's side window decides that THIS is the day that it won't work. It goes up, we go "sigh", we back up, it lowers again by itself (keep in mind, that people in most states have never even seen rain this torrential, so while the window is down, our car is being flooded!). Finally, my schedule in danger, and with 2 kids in tears (and almost 2 adults), I had to act. "Get the window up, kill the car, get your kids in my house, and I will find another ride." Which I did. Read on.

"I'm on my way!" These words hit my ears like the words "I'm sending the Wolfe." hits Jules' ears in "Pulp Fiction"--help is one the way!! For this was my Dad's response when I called him and said, "Man, I need you. Can you drop everything you're doing RIGHT NOW and take me to the airport?"...."I'm on my way," he says.

7 minutes later my Dad shows up with his Lexus with its mostly-worn tires (more on this later). I tell him the story and we race off in a blaze of glory towards IAH, with 2 hours until my flight. A side-trip involving getting my International Driver License from Meli--oops, I mean anonymous friend--plus 6 detours later, I get checked into my flight with, quite literally, less than 1 minute before they would have said "no". Even a less nice ticket agent would have said, "SORRY!!" with a smirk in her delivery.

But hey. Life is good.

Part II. To JJ Abrams and Wes Craven: I'm sorry!

I must admit that I have cursed the ridiculous antics of writers and directors the like of JJ Abrams and Wes Craven, and many others too numerous to worry about. My problem with them is that their stories rely too heavily (sometimes almost completely) on situations that are just too unbelievable to swallow, even with the suspension of disbelief policy that you need to have for such movies.

Did you see "2012" where the runway was crumbling beneath John Cusack's plane? Yeah right. Or how about any "Halloween" or "Friday the 13th" movie where the car won't start? C'mon now people, do you really want us to believe that the odds stack up so badly for the main character that NOTHING will go right for him. Count me out. This doesn't happen in real life.

So, now, back to my apology. To JJ and Wes and all of the other screenplay writers and directors that have their characters barely escape the blast ("MacGyver" anyone?), or have the missile barely miss their helicopter because the building collapsed: I am sorry. Really. I'm a believer. This bad-ass shit, Hell's-wrath stuff that defies the probabilities really CAN happen. It did today.

Luckily, much like in these mentioned movies, the main characters (played today, by my Dad and me) escaped the monster/murderer/end-of-the-world just fine.

Onward, because life is good.

Part III. My Dad, My Hero.

I'm just a blogger. A new one at that. I know that I can type what I want to here....there is no need to be completely truthful, because no one will know the real truth, right? But I swear...if I were to tell the story of my Dad's driving of me to the airport, blow by blow, I would hear responses like:

"Yeah, right, your Dad would NEVER run red lights"
"Yeah right, your Dad's car did not hydroplane the whole time on the Hardy Toll Road."
"Yeah right, you guys didn't really try SIX different routes, before discovering that 5 of them were dead-ended into 6-foot floods. (bonus: Yeah, you did NOT see cars floating in the water!)"

My Dad and I were like a 2-person, ground-based A-Team tonight! And frankly I don't think anyone else that I have ever met in my entire life could have (or would have dared) to do what we (mostly he) did. Changing routes, breaking laws, coming up with new schemes, etc. It was truly poetic. I've never seen hydroplaning as a method used to pass cars! My favorite part was when we were hydroplaning on 59, when my Dad casually said to me, "I forgot to tell you that my tires need replacing; they're pretty worn." It was like a Bruce Willis movie, except scarier.

My favorite scheme was our arrival plan. When we got to the E Terminal, I was to go sprinting out of the car, go directly to the front of the line (luckily I was in BusinessFirst, so not much line), and beg the person to get me on the flight, which was to depart in 44 minutes...and counting.

I found the nicest person, and did my nicest stressed-and-wet-but-still-charming-Texan routine, and she said "Do you have any bags?" This implied that she could get me on with no bags, but not WITH bags. I looked at her with an almost-crying face, and said, "Yes ma'am. I have two." She said to bring them on, but hurry.

Meanwhile, during the last 3 minutes, my Dad/wingman had hired the most motivated (and in-shape) skycap in Houston. He ran by me with only very brief instructions from me to meet up with my nice agent lady (I pointed). He was working for tips, and when all was well, he definitely got his.

The end. Roll credits. (Sorry, no comical out-takes are available at this time.)

The moral of the story: Plans change. Things happen. Try hard. Then move on.
(I'm now happy to be stuck in a 3-hour mechanical delay. Spain can wait. Life is everywhere.)