Honolulu'd...

I've been out "running errands" (shopping) with Mom all morning, and on our last stop we found ourselves stone cold lost in a parking lot, wheeling a shopping cart that was about to topple over due to the weight of two boxed-up bar stools. I say "we" - the cart was Mom's project. I was carrying a bag of random gatherings that was hell bent on taking off the fingers on my right hand. In a state of complete confusion, just KNOWING we were parked by a tree (of which there aren't many), we walked in circles while swearing at the wind and debating locations. When we finally stopped circling to get our bearings, I had a flashback. "Mom!", I said. "It's Honolulu Airport 2002 revisited." She said, "Ohhhhh, God.....", and went back to looking for the car.

What do I mean by "Honolulu Airport 2002 revisited"? A disaster, that's what I mean. Well, almost. It felt like a disaster while it was happening. Mom and I semi-frequent Hawaii - we have timeshares on the Big Island, and every year or so we go visit them. On this particular sojourn, we had a layover in Los Angeles, and just enough time upon hitting the ground on Oahu to make our connector flight to the Big Island. That flight, incidentally, was the last flight headed down there for the evening, but we felt certain everything would be okay. The plan was to deplane (I know, I know, go ahead and say it because I am) and get to our connector gate as quickly as possible.

Have you heard of headwinds? Those can slow a plane down. And although I was somewhat familiar with the concept, I had no idea that strong headwinds could lengthen our flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu by an hour and a half. This left us with fifteen or twenty minutes to catch our connector flight, but we weren't worried - - until we started checking through things as we are prone to do when we are bored. In checking through things, we noticed that the kind person behind the counter alllllllll the way back at our starting point (Savannah, Georgia) had only checked our bags through to Honolulu - - not Kona. (Bless her heart.) This was a problem. There would be no time to collect our bags, but we had to collect our bags. But we didn't have time. We sat in stunned silence and had a collective shit fit.

We wound up making it into Honolulu a little earlier than predicted, but still late. Got our bags, and took leave of our senses. We had to find the check in for Hawaiian Airlines, but that took a while, and involved two instances of jogging in full circles rolling our suitcases along behind us in front of VERY amused airport personnel. I tried to get Mom to stop and ask for help, but she knew where she was going. She knew. This was not time to test her. She finally asked a nice man who pointed just over our heads (he was tall) to a very long line. However, since we were so pressed for time, he took us to the front of the line, explained things, and got us checked in early. Things seemed okay.

Naturally, our gate was all the way at the end of a concourse, spurring an apex of the bizarre into happening. Mom took a purposeful, ladylike jog right straight down the middle, torso completely upright, purse tucked just so under one of her arms which were bent into jaunty right angles, not getting one element of her ensemble out of place. In perfect, poised little steps, her feet hardly leaving the floor, she went from one end of the concourse to the other in a perfectly straight line. I was shocked into standing and watching, as the last time I had seen that happen I was three years old and hell bent on a getaway. She didn't notice that I hadn't been with her the whole time until I finally caught up with her at the gate...

...which featured a queue of bored souls looking at us like we were straight from Mars. Our flight was late. The plane wasn't even there yet. We secured a place in the line, and I made a beverage run, after which we straightened our hair and makeup while pretending none of the past several minutes had happened. And then off we jetted to Kona. The end.

So now you know the kind of random things that pop into my mind so I can fully disassociate from having to find a car while it feels like my fingers are being cut off. And while recalling all of that, this little gem of a video came to mind:

Only that's really not so random, now that I think about it.