and so it begins
Krebsie picks me up at 4:00 in the morning. I haven’t managed to finish cleaning the bathroom (I ran out of cleaning shtuff) or the living room. I leave apologetic notes for the housemates and drag my eight metric tons of crap down to his car. We smoke cloves out the moonroof all the way to the airport, where I have to wait in line for FORTY-FIVE MINUTES before I can check in. While waiting for my flight, I watch a CNN Airport Network Newsbrief that says that in a recent poll, the vast majority of democrats said that they would like to see Hillary Clinton in office next. I find this amusing. I get on the plane and sleep.
In Denver, I buy Mitch yet another “#1 Grandpa” keyring. I text message him about it, and he calls (which keeps me from being bored, since my flight is delayed almost two hours.) He says that he sent me a birthday present, but apparently I just missed it. (Later, I find out that it arrived the day I left.)
2 little girls (sisters, I assume) in matching braids sing “I’ve had the time of my life” and perform a dance they’ve obviously choreographed for special occasions. It involves a lot of spinning, and every time the spinning happens they forget the words. This is all for the benefit of 2 good-looking high school boys (who are brothers). They occasionally look up and smile, but are mostly interested in taking care of their mother, who is partially paralyzed.
I leave several messages for my folks to tell them I’ve been delayed, but apparently they’ve already left to drive the 2 1/2 hours from home to the airport. D’oh.
I get on the airplane, I sleep.
I arrive in Indianapolis - Brandon is huge. I mean, freaking huge. He was big last year, he is even bigger now. He’s tall and skinny and muscly and has a deep Barry White as a teenager kind of voice, and it freaks me out. However, he still laughs like he did when he was a baby, so all is not lost.
I go home to Charleston. I repack. I sleep.
Then we drive for TWO SOLID DAYS, during which time my family laughs at my gas station diet of Gatorade and Teriyaki Beef Jerky.