A Baby, Bananas and the Trip Home from Hell!

 I wasn’t going to write a blog about my sister’s and my long-weekend junket to Seattle to attend a baby shower, but there were so many memorable moments, I thought I needed to document at least a few.  

The shower was for my sister’s son and his wife and was to be held at the home of my nephew’s in-laws, located in the first Washington town over the Canada/ US border.  Our plan was to fly into Vancouver, make the short ride over the border and arrive in Blaine, WA, where the shower was to be held the next day.  It all sounded great when we were making the plans but the actual execution was far more difficult than we ever imagined.

Before I go any further, I have to mention that we were flying United Airlines, and I have a United credit card, which entitles me to go into the lounge with one guest.  As we sat in the lounge in Newark Airport, we realized that there would be no food (except for a tiny bag of pretzels or one slightly stale Stroopwafel) on the six hour flight out west.  We agreed that the two Barebell bars in my backpack were not going to do the trick and we took advantage of being in the lounge by pilfering a few sandwiches and a couple of bananas.  The flight was uneventful, particularly since we didn’t experience any hunger pains.  Apparently, the Stroopwafel and sandwich were enough for me because I didn’t need to eat the banana. 

My niece and nephew picked us up in Vancouver and we stopped for coffee before heading towards the border and Customs. As we entered the Tim Horton’s coffee shop, my sister asked me if I had eaten my banana. I told her I hadn’t and she said, “You can’t bring agricultural products over the border.  You’re going to have to get rid of it.” I said, “It’s a banana. There has to be more serious things that the border patrol are looking for.” I hadn’t thought that I had actually taken the banana from an airport lounge IN THE UNITED STATES! That horrible combination of all the craziness going on in the world coupled with my guilt-ridden Catholicism, I threw out a perfectly fine banana on the Canadian side of the border. 

The next morning, we had a lovely breakfast with my nephew and his wife.  Our plan was to go back to the hotel, change our clothes and head over to the shower.  Two hours before the shower was to begin, the chef texted my niece’s mother to tell her he was sick and couldn’t cater the event.  It was not just that he said he was sick—he outlined every detail of his illness, which I can only describe as “not pretty.”  My sister, a retired college professor, was immediately suspect.  She said that whenever her students reached out to her at the last minute, with similar, extensive medical details of an illness they were experiencing that explained why they just couldn’t possibly take an exam that day, she knew they were lying. 

But there were still 35 people coming to the shower in about 117 minutes and we went into full “hostess” mode. My sister told the mom not to worry because we were in town and would buy everything for a charcuterie board and be over to put it together. For the next 25 minutes, our experience in the local IGA supermarket could only be described as Food Network-worthy.  The four of us, with only one carriage,  ran in separate directions with my sister giving orders as to who was to get the cheeses, who was responsible for the crackers, the jams, the sweet gherkins, the grapes and anything else that would look nice on a large cutting board (We were assured that one existed at the house, otherwise we were ready to buy one of those too!) The charcuterie board turned out lovely, and along with more pizza than any group of 35 people could eat, the baby shower was a success.  

The next day we drove about two hours to Seattle to help set up the young couple’s apartment to welcome a new baby. We got a lot accomplished in just two days and before we knew it, we were headed back east. As of this moment, it has felt like the east really didn’t want us back. We initially had an afternoon flight today from Seattle to Newark.  Yesterday however, my sister and I both received an alert that the weather in the east was terrible and that we would be able to change our flights for free.  We decided to try to get home as early as possible, and we booked ourselves on the 7:30 am flight back to Newark.  With just four hours of sleep, we dragged our weary bones out of bed and to the airport by 5:15 am for the flight…which was not to be.  The word “delay” appeared to be the word-of-the-day on the United App. My sister and I were so stressed that we had eaten lunch by 9:30 am. At one point in the morning, my sister said, “Should we have some wine? I laughed, but upon retrospect, a bit of Pinot Grigio at 10 am, may have fortified us for what lay ahead.

We were supposed to take-off at 12:15 pm. At this point, we had already been at the airport 7 hours, ate three meals and pilfered a few wraps for the long trip home— no bananas this time.  We got to the gate and were told that there was something seriously wrong with the plane and that we would likely need to rebook our flights. We were so stressed that our first response was to immediately eat the wraps, which we did.  In between bites, we looked up to see that our fellow passengers were not happy.  We all began to get on line to try to rebook because our flight was ultimately cancelled. My two takeaways from this part of our experience was : 1. Having United employees recommend passengers use an inadequate QR code that—in theory—is supposed to help stranded passengers rebook their flights, is not a recipe in ensuring satisfied customers; and 2. Even with all our advances in technology, people still need to talk to people.  In one of the many lines we ultimately stood,  we were in front of a woman who was crying and passionately swinging her arms in frustration, which ultimately led to her making a direct hit with my glasses—which were on my face. Both my glasses and I were fine, but boy, she wasn’t, clearly demonstrating that the human touch still matters.

After nearly three hours, we think we have a flight plan for home and are headed back to the east coast.  The bad news is that we won’t get there until tomorrow.  The good news is that both our pants still fit us…