DAY THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY-ONE OF THE HAPPINESS PROJECT

Day 341.  Today I go home!  I left my brother's family very early in the morning.  I drove to see a friend in the neighborhood that I grew up in.  She is 92 years old and living on her own.  SinIce my GPS took me on a long way, I had only1.5 hours to spend with her.  I showed her photos and gave her the update.

Then I got back in the car and stopped off at Wholefoods to buy some food for the plane.  

I stopped off to buy gas at a Wawa.  I have never seen a gas station where cars are parked at the pump while people go in the Wawa to shop.  I was sitting behind a car where the person must have been not just shopping but eating their meal too.  I finally got the gas and it only put in a little bit.  

I got in the car and it said it was full.  I drove a block or two and it dropped.  Suddenly it was not full anymore. I was not going back to that nightmare filling station.  When I got to the rental car return, I explain what happened to Bill and showed him my receipt.  I had heard somewhere that if you show your receipt showing that you were just at a filling station, sometimes they will cut you a break.  Sure enough Bill said he would forgive that my tank was down about 7/8 or 9/10 of a tank.  I called it a smidge.  He was very nice.

Then I went to the bag check.  American does not allow you to pay for your bag online.  I went to the curbside check in.  Angelo was a very nice gentleman who checked me in.  He didn't even weigh my bag (whew) and got my bag to SFO (more on that later.)

I went in to TSA.  I went on the regular line and then got pulled out to go Pre-check.  No shoes off, no computer out.  Love that.  I flew through.  Of course this time I didn't need it since I was prepared and was 3 hours early.  Since I was coming a long way, I padded my travel time for traffic, returning the car, getting gasoline and long TSA lines.  I had none of that.  I got to my gate at the 3 hour mark.  Lots of time to watch a movie!

While on the TSA line there were drug sniffing dogs walking up and down.  It was quite intimidating.  The dog comes right up and sniffs you and your bag.  Must really upset people who are afraid of dogs.

Finally I am ready to board the plane.  They board the 4 million American Airlines club, frequent flier, priority, etc. members.  Then it is time for cattle call.  They stop.  We are told there is a broken tray table.  That takes 20 minutes to fix.  They start boarding again.   I get on the plane.  We are backing out and starting to taxi and get in line for take off when a gentleman on the plane passes out 4 times.  There is a call for medical personnel on the plane.  I doctor across the way from me jumps up.  After some time it is assessed that he needs to go to the hospital and should not be on a plane, although he wants to fly.  He is escorted off the plane and put in an ambulance.  

They finally get that sorted and we get back in line to taxi again.  We are now 26th in line.  There is a delay because of weather.  Some time goes by and the pilot announces we are now 6th.  I wonder who he owes a beer or a bottle of wine.  We finally take off.  The rest of the flight is uneventful.  

When we land I wait for my bags with everyone else.  I wait and wait.  All the bags come out.  No bag.  I think wouldn't this be the topper to this flight?  I go over to the Bag Missing area and there is my bag.  Since I checked in so early, my bag came on an earlier flight!  It was waiting for me.  

I got home and two very happy dogs were waiting for me.  Lucky could not stop kissing me and Happy kissed me and got in my bed and went to sleep.  

It is very late for me and I need to go to sleep.  

Until tomorrow...