Most folks like to take trips when they can. We do too, but it seems ours often turn out a little weird. Recently, The Blonde in the House and I determined to visit our daughter in St. Paul. Matters started out well. There was even a poignant situation at the beginning. As we were packing, two of my socks who hadn’t seen each other for who knows how long were reunited with one having appeared magically. The Blonde thinks I am crazy, but I swear I heard them sigh as I put them in the suitcase. In any case I thought it was an expeditious sign for our journey.
Unfortunately, what followed was the dreaded venture through the Orlando airport on our way to a gate where airplanes are purported to lurk. While the gate is not that far away as the blue jay flies, it is quite some distance in time through the airport maze which is replete with obstacles. In addition, everyone was masked so you couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad guys. I think that the policing agencies make a big mistake when they use the time-honored methods of getting people to confess. It seems to me that all they have to do is make the miscreant follow the path he/she would have to take to get to a plane through the Orlando airport. Then they should make the individual go through it again and again until the person reaches the point where he/she will confess to anything. True, this would not be an easy procedure as the one making the bad person go through this road to hell would have to be replaced frequently or they might end up confessing too. The only problem I can see that the courts might rule it as cruel and unusual punishment, and the police would have to revert to the old methods.
We eventually arrived at the Minneapolis-St Paul airport where the complex is much friendlier and has fewer obstacles. Running the suspect through it again and again would not be as effective as in Orlando. But hey there are probably other methods they can use there – like make the suspect picnic outside and get eaten by the state bird in Minnesota which is called the Mosquito. Of course, that would only work in the summertime. Even the mosquitos hide in a Minnesota winter. While in the airport we picked up a rental car. It was a nice SUV with 2,500 miles on it. The vehicle road nicely and we thought it was great. Great, until the next morning when we couldn’t get it out of park. Finally, The Blonde gave a yank on something and I got it in gear. The problem then was that lights on the dash started flashing, and a big warning message indicating that there were problems with the transmission malfunctioning. It even showed a fist punching into something.
Obviously, all of the above caused some concern. We called the rental company who said we should bring it back to the airport. We did, and were told that we could take another car. We were looking and an employee said we should take a car with a blind side warning system on it, and he gave us a lecture on the benefits of such a system. He indicated that most of the available cars did not have the system, but he said one did. As The Blonde will not let me buy a car without the system, I said OK. Well, we got in the car and I realized that it was the oldest one they had. Heck, you even had to put the key in the ignition. On top of that, it didn’t have the blind spot warning system. We spent the rest of the time there rattling around in a bumpy car.
Then there was the motel at which we stayed. We had researched what was available in the area. The motel had a 4.5 out of 5 rating. With some nice comments about it. We scheduled some nights there. However, when we went to the room, it obviously did not fit the ratings. One of the beds was so lumpy that I don’t know how anyone could have slept in it. We went downstairs and indicated that we were leaving. We were then offered a free upgrade to a suite.
The beds in the suite were non -lumpy and there was a lot of room so we stayed even though it was not what would be considered socially acceptable.
We had flown to St. Paul for our daughter’s birthday. That went fine and everyone enjoyed the party so the purpose of the trip was met. Eventually. We drove the non-blind side warning rolling bumper car to the airport. Once there, we went into the airport where the airline had an early bag drop off location. That took five minutes. We then headed for the security line where a nice lady took one look at us and told us to go through the first-class line as it would be quicker. It was and we sailed through without any problem even though we didn’t have first class tickets. As I mentioned above the MSP airport complex is much friendlier than the one where Disney, Universal etc. are located. The plane was only fifteen minutes late arriving in Orlando. We made it home in our own car which does have blind side warning on it.
As I noted at the beginning our trips often turn out a little weird. However, this one did have a happy ending. We don’t have to go to the Orlando airport for a nice long time.
Villager Barry Evans is a columnist for Villages-News.com.