Wife is Lost

GUESS WHO CAME HOME EARLY?!?!?!?!?!?!

His boss let him cut the trip into three weeks instead of four!!! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I tell you what--driving to the airport to pick him up created a nerve bundle that combined six-year-old me on Christmas Eve with twenty-two-year-old me the night before my wedding.  Giddy? Just a tad.

I mean, I contained it pretty well up until that point.
Went with my folks to their Saturday evening church service, out to sushi, then home with them to play Rummikub and Bananagrams  (so much fun! :] I love games that have to do with patterns and words), and I was completely chill--no bouncing, no random squeals of jubilee, just me going "Hmmmm . . . . Welp, Ellie, I think you beat me again . . . Oh, no wait, go Mom! Always Mom . . . "  THEN I got in the car to head to the airport and I was like a Chihuahua who hadn't peed in a week.

To make matters worse, I am TERRIBLE with directions. I mean, give me a GPS and I'll survive, but don't let me loose on my own.  I got lost in a kitchen once. I am not kidding.  If I were one of those rats sent to find the cheese in a scientist's maze, I'd starve not for lack of survival drive but simply because I can't find the ding-dang cheese.

So you send me to Orlando International Airport, alone, with no way to contact my husband and get directions. It's not a huge airport compared to some, but, for someone like me who was STILL getting lost in the office backrooms after working six months, it's an intimidating little beast. And, might I add, that Orlando drivers are not the most patient folk? All I want is a sign that says PARKING. That's it. PARKING. But all I see are signs for Terminals A and B . . . .

I think I'm supposed to go to B, but isn't that like just drop-off and pick-up? You can't park at a terminal can you? I don't know!
OOH! PARKING!!! There it is! A teeny tiny sign that says "Economy Parking!" HUZZAH!!! . . . Wait . .. this is like three miles from the airport . . . Chris doesn't want to walk three miles . . . better try again . . . SHUT UP, GPS!
Oh, never mind, thanks GPS, you're a champ.
Ok, ummm . . . I guess I'm going to a terminal then . . . which one? B? Oh, oops, stuck in the lane for A . . . A it is then . . . It doesn't REALLY matter when you're just picking someone up, right?
Oh, GOD, a parking garage! I hate these! I hate them hate them hate them hate them! Ok, just keep driving, and don't knock over any yellow cones . . . just keep driving . .. and, we'll park here because I'm not sure how far I should go . . . and, now, the inside . .. where I hopefully don't end up on a plane to Tokyo . . . Oh, silly, I'd have to have a ticket for that . . .

As it turned out, I was in the wrong terminal and it took me a trip up an escalator, then into an elevator, then meandering between baggage claims searching for the hubs.
Cell Phone Rings: "Hello?"
"Where are you??"
"Baggage claim. Where are you?"
"Baggage claim."
.........
"Which terminal?"
"A?"
"SIGH I told you I'm in terminal B."
"Well, driving and lanes and stuck and crying and--"
"It's ok. I'll find you."

So I stand very still and wait because any attempt of mine to move would get me any more lost and then Chris and I might never see each other again and I'll be stuck here like Tom Hanks and---
And suddenly there's Chris coming down the stairs, clad in a brown leather jacket and shaggy hair, holding a guitar case and looking like a roguish, homeless musician traveling the world on the money thrown into his guitar case.
Good lord in heaven, I married a handsome man.

"YAY! YOU FOUND ME!!!"

Because, once again, he had uncovered me when I was very lost and alone in the dark and saved me from the monsters.

So we walked together, and discovered that I had parked at the farthest corner of the parking garage.

I have a blister to prove it.
And a husband :]



P.S. The moral of the story is that, if you ask me to pick you up from the airport, you will very likely end up having to save me instead . . .

P.P.S. The title is a reference to this children's book my mom always read me when I was tiny (to this day, I still read it in her voice, even when I'm just remembering it).  I realize now that it was prophetic to my existence--constantly lost. It's the tale of a pup who doesn't listen to his mother in the grocery store and ends up getting lost wandering the aisles. Super cute, if you can still find it.