An Angry Taxi Driver reminded me to be Thankful
The day began with a taxi driver. Excuse me, let me rephrase, an angry taxi driver who didn’t know how to use his credit card machine. The recent bombing in London had heightened security at airports and our group of three sisters had left plenty of time to get to the airport. Or, we had plenty of time until this taxi driver came into our life. He was now becoming loud with frustration. We implore him to please hurry after 15 minutes of watching him push buttons and call his office. Soon we are looking at the time and getting stressed. He begins yelling at the top of his lungs and we look at each other becoming a little concerned. We enlist the assistance of two nearby policemen. They suggest we exchange email addresses and solve the problem later so we can get on the plane. The 30 minutes extra time we had incorporated into the day were now gone.
We are bombarded with sound as we hurry into Heathrow Airport. There are people rushing about everywhere you look. We locate the kiosk to begin our check-in and are stunned to see unattended luggage. Seriously. You can see how the day is unfolding. After again enlisting assistance, the luggage is claimed. A yelling taxi driver and now this scare! We are stressed. We manage to check-in via the kiosk and head to the next step in the process, checking our luggage.
One of the sisters has overweight luggage we learn. We begin pulling out clothing and a jacket to lessen the weight. I’m sure those in line behind us were rolling their eyes and looking at watches. Finally success! We rush next to the Security check point.
We were so proud as we started this trip that we had pre-check all the way. Now we are in London days after a terrorist attack. There is no such thing as pre-check. Feeling thankful we weren’t in London when that happened, we understand that all of the security measures are for our protection. Again we make our way through a crazy line and two of us are selected for carry-on search. We wait patiently (well as patiently as can be at this point ). Here we go. Home stretch. All we have to do is find our gate. The sign that says our gate is 20 minutes away cannot be right! We are so not going to be stuck in London. We walk hurriedly. Eventually we see the moving sidewalks called people movers. We all smile. We have so got this. At the second set, I hear a terrible sound and turn, to see one of my sisters is on the ground. She had tripped coming off the moving floor. Airport personnel appear as if from nowhere and encourage her to see emergency personnel. While her wrist hurts and her knee is scraped, she assures everyone that she is okay. A wheel chair appears and water. We advise that our plane is boarding and they rush us there moving us to the front of the line with the wheelchair.
Once aboard, she says its bad but no way is she staying in London. We understand. We are all ready to be home. By the end of 9 and a half hours on the plane, she is in pain and everything is swollen. We have less than a 2 hour turn around time in Dallas but it seems doable.
As we hit the ground, the pilot announces that a plane with mechanical difficulties is at our gate. We wait 45 minutes for another gate to open up. All you can do is laugh at this point. Sensing a theme of this day? Oh and I forgot to mention that we are in row 35 on the plane. Eventually we actually make it off the plane. We are so happy to see there is an attendant with a wheelchair waiting for us.
The danger of missing our connections by now is real and we tell the wheelchair attendant our dilemma. Off we go. I tell you this woman was moving at a pretty good pace and I am jogging to keep up with the group. We make it through Customs easily since our super woman wheelchair attendant takes us to the front of the line. We are thankful but still trying to accept the possibility of not being home tonight. The thing about traveling is that when your scheduled day comes to go home, you are ready to go home no matter how wonderful the trip has been.
We still have the tram to our gates to maneuver and we part ways there with one sister going another direction on the last leg of the trip. This amazing airport attendant gets us to our gate with 3 minutes to spare! A true miracle. Driving home from the airport in Albuquerque, I am thankful as I think about our day. All three of us made it home as scheduled. We were not in London at the time of the bombings. We didn’t miss any of our flights. We had amazing adventures (which I can’t wait to tell you about) that we will never forget.
“There is no place like home” running through my mind, I happily pull into my driveway and hug my husband. Laughingly I think that the universe put us through our paces today and am reminded that I am blessed. Thank you for the adventure. Thank you for getting us home safe. Thank you for reminding me that I am blessed. Amen.
P.S. My injured sister sought medical help the next day and did not have a fractured wrist but will be sporting a splint for a few weeks.