I Told You So

or, Why You Should Listen to Your Instincts When Travelling with Your Mother

My mom and I flew to Tucson this weekend to babysit my 14 month old niece while my sister and her husband went to Las Vegas for a vacation. My mom is still there actually, as they won't be back until late tomorrow, but I have a job that, you know, pays, so I figured maybe I'd better come back early.

I would like to preface the following story about our travels with this: I hate traveling with my mom. It consistently proves to be an infuriating/miserable experience. Like the time she nearly made all 4 of us miss our plane to Maine because she wouldn't get out of bed on time and then didn't understand why I was "power walking" through the airport. Or the time we drove to Arkansas to visit her family (just the two of us) and she ended up in the ER on Saturday night and nearly died of sepsis. Yeah, that was fun.

I should also probably point out that my mom LOVES Southwest Airlines. Love loves them. Would have tiny airplane babies at the age of 62 if that were biologically possible.

But I digress. I took a half day from work on Friday and was home in plenty of time to unload a bunch of shit out of her car so that Daddy could drive us to the airport in it (did I mention he bought a brand new BMW convertible last week? No, I'm not kidding). She was planning to leave work NO LATER than 2pm because we needed to be at the airport at 3 for our 3:55 flight. They got home right on schedule and we loaded up and headed to the airport.

Now my father, he is not a patient man. So when traffic stacked up for no apparent reason about halfway to the airport he proceeded to pitch a ridiculous fit, slamming on the brakes in my mom's already-hard-to-stop Durango and just generally acting like a total fucking jerk. By the time we arrived at the curb-side check in I was ready to slap him across the back of the head and tell him to chill the fuck out.

In between his ridiculous cursing and squealing breaks and thankGodtheseatbeltslock fun, he and my mom set about trying to convince me that I should check my bag, since my mom had to check hers and I wasn't going to save any time not having to wait at baggage claim. The conversation went something like this:

"How close is our connection?" I asked.

"We have an hour! Plenty of time!" my mom replied.

"No, we have 50 minutes, according to these boarding passes. If we're delayed at all it's going to be really tight." I hesitated.

"It's less than an hour before takeoff and the website says everything's on time!" she continued.

"Alright, fine. But I'm telling you, I've had to literally sprint through an airport to make a connection before. And guess what? My bag didn't make it." I pointed out.

"But this is Southwest!" she assured me.

I consented, grudgingly, and went back to being scared for my life. We got there, checked our bags curb-side, and went in to the airport. Where we discovered, can it be?!, that our flight was delayed. 45 minutes, so far. No joke. At which point I said to my mother, "See? Now the connection is going to be really close if we're really that late! Didn't I tell you?" and etc. She continued to brush me off. We worked a crossword puzzle. I was having an awesome crossword puzzle day and was kicking some serious difficult-clue ass. We boarded the plane 30 minutes behind schedule.

The ride was pleasant, we sat with a 33 year old guy from San Diego. My mom bought all 3 of us drinks with her years-expired drink coupons ("Southwest is so great!"). The flight attendants came over the loud speaker to tell us we were making our descent into Albuqueque and some of us had some pretty tight connections, could everyone else please let them off the plane first. They're holding the planes for us but they'd like us to board as quickly as possible. I looked at my mom and she said "Calm down Mare, I'm sure it will be fine!"

So we power walked through the tiny Albuqueque airport, boarded the plane, and took off. A very short flight later, we were on the ground in Tucson, deplaning and making our way to the baggage claim.

I would say that I don't have to tell you what happened next, but I do. Because it was epic in the I Told You So department. It was an eat-shit-and-die I Told You So. It was a you-had-sure-as-hell-better-listen-to-me-next-time I told you so.

I waited at the carousel while mom went out to see if Brandon was on the curb waiting for us yet. I pulled mom's bag off the carousel (YES. HER BAG MADE IT.) I watched several very similar 20" rolling black suitcases make their way off the conveyor and get snatched up by other people. And then there were no more bags. And my mom walked back up and I said "It's not here. I TOLD YOU SO."

And then we stood in the baggage office where the Southwest employee DID NOT ACKNOWLEDGE OUR PRESENCE for a solid 10 minutes. I'm not even kidding you, that bitch didn't even look up and say "I'll be with you in just a minute." She typed and she answered the phone and she radioed someone and not once did she look up until, after 10 WHOLE MINUTES she looked and me and said "OK, how can I help you?" with a smile that I wanted to slap off her stupid face.

(I should point out here that I am not a hypocrite. I also lack patience, like my father, but I was perfectly calm and nice to her when she finally helped me, unlike my father who would have stuck his hand in her face 2 minutes in and demanded she help him right this instant).

So I registered my bag and was informed that it would most likely be in on the 10:40 flight from Albuqueque. Since we had to come back to the airport the next morning to drop off Adrianne and Brandon, I told her I'd pick it up (also, we didn't know their address. So that was helpful). She promised me a $50 travel voucher for picking it up instead of having it delivered. My mom was instantly pleased with the outcome of the debacle ("Only Southwest would do that!"). Me, not so much.

I should also mention that when I went back Saturday morning (in the same clothes I'd had on the afternoon before, only now I had nice cheesy baby handprints on my white shirt), there was no one in the baggage office. So I waited for 20 minutes to speak to someone at the ticketing counter who radioed down and found out that there was already someone down there. So that was fun.

Needless to say, I was thoroughly annoyed at this whole thing and made sure to tell my mom many, many times, that I was right and she was wrong. And then when my dad picked me up at the airport last night, I made sure to tell him a few times too. Because that was way more satisfying than the $50 travel voucher, let's be honest.