The Labyrinthine Wedding – Day 11

Another early morning flight, but this time Troy was not compliant at all.  He refused to wake up, and when I finally managed to get him up and dressed, he plopped down on the floor in the den and refused to move.  He wouldn’t decide on what he wanted to eat, and he wouldn’t go to the bathroom.  I was trying to convince him that he couldn’t “hold it” as he kept telling me, but he had a meltdown and refused to budge except for his mother.

My wife was running around trying to put the last things into her suitcase and help deal with Troy.  At the same time, my mother-in-law was standing in the doorway anxiously indicating that we were already late to leave for the airport.  Because that’s always helpful when you’re dealing with a stubborn four-year old.  My wife took over with Troy, and I went with my mother-in-law to put the suitcases in the car.  By the time we got back, Troy was sort of headed in the right direction.  But then, we had some drama over which way to go to the car.  I was prepared to go down the stairs to the gate, but my mother-in-law wanted me to go down the elevator and out the garage.  The only issue was that the garage door was already closed and the other door from the garage was locked.  She came all the way downstairs to tell me to go out the garage door, instead of setting the house alarm like she was supposed to be doing.  Then, she had to go back up the stairs to set the house alarm, which made us even later.

By the time we finally got on the road, my mother-in-law was a nervous wreck.  She was speeding down the road, dangerously passing people on two wheels around blind curves.  Every time she had to wait behind a slow car, she was cussing them under her breath.  She whipped into the departure lane at the airport barely coming to a rolling stop as we yanked the suitcases out of the back of the car.  Then, she started honking at other people who were disembarking from their cars because they were blocking her in.

For all of this drama, we actually made it with plenty of time to spare, so the death-defying antics were pointless.  We even had time to buy coffee and chocolate.  The flight was another quick one, but they still served us a small lunch sandwich.  This is when Troy’s exhaustion caught up with him.  He didn’t want to eat the sandwich; he just wanted to pull the turkey and cheese off of it.  But then he dropped the sandwich (onto the tray, not the floor), and he got upset.  He started kicking the chair in front of him, sending the poor man in it jerking forward several times.  He started trying to slam the tray closed, catching my wife’s finger in it in the process.  She got mad and chewed him out, which made him start crying.  Then, nothing would pacify him.  He was wailing at the top of his lungs for twenty minutes, while everyone in the cabin turned around to see what was going on.  My wife was trying to calm him down, but he was mad at her, so he didn’t want her to touch or talk to him.  My wife refused to trade seats with me, so I could try to deescalate the situation, because she wanted to make a point with him that this behavior wouldn’t be tolerated.  By the time we were landing at the airport, Troy was a red, blubbering mess.

As soon as we hit the terminal, my mother-in-law took off like a bat out of hell.  I was carrying two backpacks and herding Troy, and my wife was limping along on her injured knee…and my mother-in-law left us all behind.  She never even looked behind her.  She just did her own thing.  My wife said she was anxious about the car, but I pointed out that our presence, or lack thereof, would keep her from going anywhere anyway.  When we hit the customs line, we ran into more bad luck.  My mother-in-law jetted through the EU passport line, while for some reason, the stupid airport security person sent us through the slow, jammed-packed, Non-EU passport line.  We’ve never had this issue before.  I am always able to tag along with my wife on her EU passport, which means I no longer get stuck waiting in the “other” line for an interminable amount of time.  But not today!

And what did my mother-in-law do while we stood in the stupid passport line for twenty minutes?  She ran off to the baggage claim, even though she didn’t have any baggage to claim!  Thankfully, I guess, she had somehow managed to drag our suitcases off the conveyor belt.  But as soon as we got them from her, she took off again, practically running across the airport…in the wrong direction.  By the time we finally caught up with her, she was heading in the opposite direction and zoomed on by us.  We slowly turned around and headed after her.  We found her on the sidewalk, waiting for the rental car.  So again, no reason to rush at all.

We crammed the luggage and ourselves into the car, and then my mother-in-law took off at full speed again.  She was racing around people, cussing out slow drivers, and at one point, she even ran over a curb.  Why were we in such a hurry, you may ask?  Well, I still don’t know, because we pulled up at her house, unpacked the car, and then everyone dropped for a nap.  I still contend that she’s just an anxious traveler, and she can’t turn it off until she reaches her destination. 

After we arrived, my mother-in-law told me that she was so hungry, because she hadn’t eaten anything all day.  I asked her if she just wasn’t hungry or if she didn’t have time.  She said she didn’t have time, because she packed her suitcase this morning, and then she was rushing us along.  Maybe she should have packed her suitcase last night like we did…and then just calmed the freak down!!!  It just unnecessarily adds more stress to an already stressful situation.