At 3:30 AM Pacific Time, my phone rang. At first, in my confused and asleep state, I thought it was my daily wake-up call (have I mentioned how much I love my landline voice mail?). But voice mail doesn’t answer back when I say hello. (Please note while you read this that it was around 12:30 PM in Germany.)
Mom: Hello ? ? ?
#1 Son: Oh! Hello! Hello there!
Mom: Hi ? ! ? ! ?
#1 Son: Uh… I sort of missed my flight. But they say I can get on the one tomorrow and it shouldn’t be a problem. Except that the flight tomorrow is sort of booked full. But the airlines can offer people a couple of hundred bucks to give up their seat to me and that should work OK. Except I sort of have to give them the couple of hundred bucks so they can do that. You know.
Mom: Where are you?
#1 Son: I’m at the airport. I’m talking to the airline guy at the counter right now.
Mom: And you missed your flight? Why did you miss your flight? [note - I'm not really swift when woken from a sound sleep. It's a failing, I know.]
#1 Son: Uh… well… it should have been OK. We left a couple of hours early. But we couldn’t find a parking place. And then nobody knew where the right terminal was. And we couldn’t find the ticket counter.
Mom: But you can get on the flight tomorrow? I’m still trying to catch up here.
#1 Son: Yeah. Well. The flight tomorrow is 100% full so I’m sort of like standby but not really. I guess they’re sort of overbooking me on. They just need to offer a couple of hundred bucks for someone to give up their seat is all. Sorry. I know it’s really late there.
Mom: What happens if they offer money and nobody gives up their seat?
#1 Son [after conversation with guy at ticket counter]: He says that’s never happened. And once I get to Philadelphia it’s OK. They can book me from there to Portland. It’s just from Munich to Philadelphia that’s full. But, you know, people don’t show up and stuff. It should be OK
Mom: OK. So you need money to offer to people?
#1 Son: Well… yeah…
Mom: OK.
#1 Son: Thanks!
Mom: There’d better be yarn coming home from Germany for me.
#1 Son: Well… The good news is that now I have time to buy some!
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I’m trying so hard not to laugh because it sounds exactly like something my 19 year old daughter would do.
I hope he gets home safely
1Remark from Karen — Wednesday, 7/16/2008 @ 12:32 pm PDT
That is just too funny :)! I hope he has good taste in yarn!
2Remark from Mitzi — Wednesday, 7/16/2008 @ 12:34 pm PDT
I love reading your converstations with your son. My boy acts like it cost him money to volunteer information, he would rather answer yes or no, (or maybe) to whatever question I put to him. Trouble is half the time it takes me half an hour of interrogation to know what the questions should BE!
3Remark from Keryn — Thursday, 7/17/2008 @ 2:55 am PDT
OMG.
4I’m so glad mine never traveled internationally!
(((hugs)))
Remark from Knitnana — Thursday, 7/17/2008 @ 9:45 am PDT
Oh. My.
5Remark from Tan — Thursday, 7/17/2008 @ 8:26 pm PDT
I love all of the “sort of”s - as if that makes it not really have happened!
6Remark from Emily — Saturday, 7/19/2008 @ 3:45 pm PDT
Hope you get some Wollmeise out of all this!
7Remark from sharon — Saturday, 7/19/2008 @ 10:29 pm PDT
Well I have to say I’m laughing (sorry) but I don’t have kids so to me it is kinda funny. I used to work in an airport and I saw a couple of teenagers trying to communicate with an airline person, the two teenagers were both deaf. I went over to see if I could help. They had been overseas and spent all their money and didn’t have any left to get their car our of the carpark. I called their parents and they gave the carpark people a credit card. It was kinda funny then too. Thanks for sharing!
8Remark from Milly — Sunday, 7/20/2008 @ 5:30 am PDT
I am laughing sooooo hard that tears were streaming down my face. I have 3 boys (21 and 2 x 20 year olds). I can really visualize this whole thing happening. My favorite line is “The good news is that now I have time to buy some!” That really put me over the laughing edge. One of my sons is currently in Nepal and recently called to say he got his wallet stolen (not passport, c. cards or cash which were in his chest pouch). If they want to be so independent, why do they bother to call in the middle of the night anyway! I think it is just a cruel plan to give us more gray hair. Too funny.
9Remark from Nikki — Wednesday, 8/6/2008 @ 2:15 pm PDT