Saturday, December 7, 2013

I'm coming home

While waiting for my flight last night I monitor the "upgrade list".  I was 10th so I had no chance.  In the tournament of customer preferences I managed to get as high as six.  I am still trying to guess the algorithm Delta uses for this.  Oh well.  I wasn't looking for the free snacks anyway and at 6' 3" I have still managed to find ways of making legroom.

When boarding commenced the announcement came "Sky Priority" which normally makes me feel privileged as I look forward to first dibs on overhead and getting to my window seat without asking two other people to stand back up and get out of my way.

That was until it seemed 2/3rds of the entire airplane were just as special.  "I haven't flown hundreds of thousands of miles to just end up like everyone else!  Sky Priority is being handed out like candy!"  I thought.

Then I had a vision of a (insert nightmare here) freeway with commuters spending 4hrs+ a day logging substantial miles of their own and get nothing but horns honking, flat tires and toll roads in return. I was grateful for being scrunched up in my middle seat with a TV in front of me.  My commute each day of last week was two flights of stairs.  I could not complain.

I thought of past generations of fathers who took to traveling on the road in beat up cars and facing risk of being stranded in the desert with an overheated radiator and having to choose how to use his water.  I could go back farther into the past but I would rather think about how the times we live in have not changed the base instinct that we have to both explore and provide for our families.

My daughters were already prepared for bed and it is 20 degrees outside.  It was better to take a cab home than be picked up. On arrival I tipped the driver and carried my things through the snow and made the door.

I was finally home and there was only one thing on my mind.  Upon the sound of my keys turning the lock my children rushing down the stairs to greet me. I couldn't get my luggage into the foyer before having to rush to the base of the stairs to catch my now 60lb oldest leaping from the height of five stair steps into my arms. Her youngest sister chose the third step and I had to catch her with one hand.

It was late so I agreed to one game of "Chutes and Ladders" before tucking them in as "Snug as a bug in a rug". I had been also been assigned the task of making pancakes in the morning even though I am not very good at it.

I am home.

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