What A Long Strange Trip

Made it back to L.A. last night by no small miracle. Family members were dispersing in all directions...a sister and brother-in-law off to Mesa, a son arriving for a quick hello and a ride from me, my brother and his g.f. to L.A., a mother off to Palm Springs airport to catch a plane back to Midland TX via Dallas. Hold on a second. What's the mother doing walking back in the door of the condo at 3:15 when her plane took off at 2?

Uh oh. Watch the original plan instantly blown out of the water. Original plan being son, brother, brother's g.f., moi et le luggage pour into the little green Jeep Liberty and hi-tail it to L.A. Oh, and the Pumpkin.

Now the car is not only loaded with the long-traveling brother and g.f. toting ginormous suitcases and other excess baggage, the son, moi with my shit including 12 large grapefruits I plucked from a neighboring tree, my new pillows, my old pillow and, of course, Pumpkin...but the mother is now stuffed into the fray so she can catch a 1am plane out of LAX. This ridiculous configurations can't last the 125+ mile drive. No way. The plan is a 40-some minute drive from the condo to Palm Springs airport...the only place open where we can snag an additional set of wheels to divide up the load.

It was around 30 minutes into the seemingly long, definitely excruciating ride that I had that sinking feeling. You know the one. The 'I hope I didn't forget anything' one. And I really hope it's not my cell phone that I forgot. I know it's my cell phone. It's really hard to fish through a large leather bag when you're packed like a sardine in a tin can on wheels, minus the oil. After 5 minutes of groping, I'm 99.999 percent sure my cell phone was now 35 minutes in the opposite direction. My suspicions were confirmed when my son's cell phone rang with a call from my cell phone and I wasn't doing the dialing...

...to be continued...or not.

What part of 'to be continued' did you not understand? I'm tired and am going to sleep.