Columbia Adventure (Part Start)

Here we goooo…

A recount of an adventure with daughter Nikki. February 29, 2008

It was a grand adventure from the moment I decided to get up and have a good time.

John Toebe, LAX airport angel, was due to pick us up at 6:15 a.m. sharp. Nik gave me the wake-up call I requested at 5:00, but I was already awake. I’d been lying there thinking about the distance I felt from my sweetheart that seemed to be getting further and farther away.

What does, “Uh-huh, you too,” mean? A guided missile? A rock band?

“Uh-huh, you too” was the reply I’d gotten from him all too often lately when I told him I loved him. Sigh.

All the same, as soon as I got up at 5:20 that morning, the agenda was entirely different. Nikki bounced in with tail wagging, ready, excited and eager to get going. We were about to deploy to Columbia, South Carolina, to see her new husband, Jerome, who would soon be graduating from basic training at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.

I went into action mode, I took a quick shower all the while humming some silly song I thankfully can’t remember at this point. I was packed and ready the night before, so all the last minute stuff went like… well, clockwork.

Mr. Toebe arrived at 6:00 to egg us on… and yes indeed, we were out the door precisely at 6:15 as scheduled.

Everyone should have a Mr. Toebe as a friend. His goal is to please; he’d have been genuinely hurt had I not asked him for a ride.

Oops, silly me, we got to about 22^nd Street when I realized we had forgotten the itinerary. So, back we go… Mr. Toebe is so sweet, kind and patient! Thankfully we were just a few blocks from home, which is where I usually remember I forgot something essential, like the tickets, a map, an important phone number, directions, a kid.

So, good ol’ Mr. Toebe took the 110 fwy to the 105, not my route of choice, but he’s driving and the gas was on him, which turned out to a good thing although the traffic was backed up on the 105. We listened to the radio traffic report and learned there was an injury accident ahead. We also learned that conditions were far worse on the 405 so it was the “road best taken.”

The accident had obviously been a bad one. The ambulances were gone by the time we passed, but what remained was a molten heap of ashen grey that was almost unrecognizable as a car. I said a prayer for the former occupants; it was pretty scary.

Our flight time was 8:55 and though the standard is to be at the airport two hours early, arriving at 7:30 made no matter. We checked our bags in from the curbside for five bucks, whisked through check-in and security, and were safely in the terminal at our boarding area by 7:45.

I was warned to be patient; there would be long lines and the personnel unfriendly—untrue! Everyone was just as nice as can be!

Nikki, on the other hand, was as fretful and as nervous as her father.

“That went extremely well!” I gushed at Nikki’s furled face.

“I’ve always had bad experiences in airports.” she confessed.

“There’s always a first.” I beamed. “Now you know it can be done and it’ll be good from here on out!”

Still, she turned white when I casually set my carry-on down on the floor next to her to watch while she stood eating a parfait she bought at a crowded McDonald’s on the terminal concourse. (I got a much wanted coffee, though it was full strength! How can a restaurant serving simulated breakfast food not have simulated hot water? Do they not have tea? Do they not know that some people, well at least one, like their coffee extremely weak?)

“You can’t just leave a bag unattended; they’ll think it’s a BOMB!” she bantered, “What if someone comes up and asks?”

With a full raised eyebrow, perplexed at this gifted daughter’s paranoia, “You say,” I told her, “‘Oh, it’s my mom’s bag. She’s just right there in the book store.’

“It’s easy.”

In the bookshop, I bought a notepad to write of our escapades, and a book called, The Go-Giver, by Bob Burg, and John David Mann recommended to me the weekend before by Mary, the fabulous photographer for the wonderfully enlightening, Bridging Heart and Marketing Conference I attended hosted by my wonderful celebrity clients, relationship experts Drs. Judith Sherven & Jim Snieckowski (popularly known as Judith & Jim), now soft-sell marketing aficionados. (And isn’t marketing all about establishing a relationship with your customer? Yes.)

Mary, at the conference check-in was so thrilled with the book. She confessed she picked up in the airport and read it twice on the plane getting here and that she just loved it! She even had the copy in her hand so she could show everyone!

So there it was, this little, bright red book blaring at me on the book store shelf. I’d have to pay the full cover price knowing, if I waited, I could get it much cheaper at Amazon, but it was there, and I was there, and I’m going on a long airplane ride just like Mary, and… sold!

I came out happy with my prize to find a very nervous Nikki. She was getting anxious cause it was close to boarding time. We made it back to the gate just time… to wait in line.

We boarded, no problem. I got the window seat—YAY!

To be continued…