No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

A couple months back I found out that my older sister from upstate NY would be visiting my folks on the Cape the week after Easter. Because I like seeing her at least once a year, because I probably won't get to see her when I visit in the summer, and because I have no idea what our plans are for the holidays, I decided to fly back there for a short visit. I then decided that it would be a fun idea to not tell my folks and surprise them when I got there. Finally, I figured that, since we were going to be all together, it'd be a great idea to take my folks out to a nice dinner in celebration of their belated 50th anniversary (it was Sept 14, 2008, but they couldn't celebrate because of my dad's illness; now, it's just too expensive).

Regrettably, flights cost a lot more during Easter weekend, so I decided to fly in on Monday. The problem was that Partner and I already had plans to visit Seattle the next weekend, which meant that I had to return on Thursday. It would have to be a short visit of two days and three nights. Hardly seems worth it, when you think of it like that.

The non-stop flight from Portland to Boston on Alaska Airlines always leaves at 7am, so I went to bed early Sunday night...only to toss and turn for hours. I think I got less than five hours of sleep, but even that was interrupted by the sound of two cats wailing in our backyard at 2:30. Anyway, the trip to Boston was tiring but uneventful, and because I didn't have to wait for my checked luggage, I was able to catch the 3:45 bus down to the Cape.

The problem: that bus would have me in Hyannis at 5:45, which meant my sister would have to make up an excuse for leaving the house and pick me up right around dinner time. It wasn't going to be easy. To make matters worse, her cell phone was off when I called from the bus, so I had to call the house to reach her. Wouldn't you know it, my dad answered and told me that my mom and sister were out in Hyannis. That meant that my sister would have to drive my mom home, drop her off, then immediately turn around and drive back to Hyannis to get me. I made it sound as if I were in Portland then made an excuse and hung up. I decided to call a friend of my folks and ask him if he would pick me up. It was awkward, not only because I was asking for a favor from someone I normally shouldn't be calling, but then I had to justify it to my family later.

The good news was that I did manage to pull off the surprise without causing any cardiac arrests (although there were some tears...of joy, I hope). We had a good dinner of easter left-overs (yum!), and I went to bed fairly early. The next day we drove up to Canton to select and order photographs from our pre-Christmas photo shoot. (Why the delay? My folks were in Florida for about 10 weeks during the winter.) After that we all went to Waban/Newton to visit my cousin whose husband just died a few weeks ago. Neither my sister nor I could make the funeral, so we were looking forward to seeing our cousin and sharing our condolences. Finally, we drove over to our younger sister's house in Kingston.

We decided to take my parents to a nice restaurant there (instead of the original plan of taking them out on the Cape), so we packed up everybody and went to dinner. It was a nice restaurant and had good food, except there were two potential "spoilers" of the evening: 1) my parents insisted on paying for the meal, which defeated the purpose of us taking them out; and 2) the restaurant brought a dessert for my parents in celebration of their anniversary, but then they charged us for it. When my dad asked the waiter about it, he said that someone in the group (maybe my younger sister?) asked for the dessert, so it technically wasn't coming from the restaurant. However, my thoughts are, why wouldn't the restaurant offer one free dessert to their patrons on such a special occasion? After all, we did bring 10 people to their establishment, and we did order desserts of our own. It wasn't as if we all ordered water to drink and the cheapest meals to eat. It was a rookie mistake for that waiter/restaurant, and given the choice of places, I don't think we'll choose there again.

The following day I stuck close to home and helped out with yardwork. Unfortunately, the big task that my dad wanted done was raking, but it was a very windy day. On top of that, I'm sorry to say that I was getting very annoyed by my niece. I say 'sorry' because I only get to see her a couple of times a year at most, and I know that she's only 9, but still I couldn't help getting upset when all she had to do was hold a bag and she wouldn't do it. I guess my excuse is that I hate raking and I'm a task-oriented person, but the wind and her antics were conspiring to keep me from finishing. Anyway, that night we had delicious Chinese food for dinner, and we watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding from the dvd that my sister had bought. We had all seen it before, but we still found it highly amusing, I think because we're Italian and can relate.

The next day was Thursday and the day I had to leave. The thing about the Alaska flight direct from Boston to Portland is that it leaves at approxiamtely 4:30 in the afternoon, but I had to get a bus from the Cape to Logan. So, I could get the 11:45 bus from Hyannis and get to Logan around 1:45, or I could catch the 12:45 bus and get there at 2:45. The last time I caught that later bus, it broke down on the highway and I was sweating bullets about catching my flight. Therefore, I usually get the earlier bus, which means I then have time to change my seat to an exit row and relax in the terminal. This is what I did.

In the terminal, my first indication of trouble (although probably not related to what was going to happen next) was that no one from Alaska showed up to the little desk at the gate. I kept waiting for someone to show up so I could change my seat (after all, I was the first person there), but no one did as more and more passengers arrived. Finally someone from US Air showed up, but by that time there was a crowd of people waiting, and a line quickly formed to talk with him. Since I knew I had an aisle seat, I decided not to worry about it. Instead, I left the gate for a slice of pizza and a bottle of soda. I mention that because I don't usually like to pay the exorbitant fees in the airport, but I figured the pizza might tie me over until the snacks on the plane, and I could fill the bottle from the bubbler (water fountain) for free water. I did so, and eventually it became time for us to board the plane - although another bad sign was that we were boarding late. I thought about keeping my soda bottle for the plane and then made the conscious decision to throw it out. Boy did I regret that!

After we boarded the plane, we sat there for a few minutes until eventually an announcement was made. They were having electrical problems with the plane and had to shut down the entire system - in effect, they had to "reboot" the airplane. They did, but the power wasn't coming back on. Finally they made another announcement saying that they were trying to fix the problem, but in the meantime we would all have to deboard. In retrospect, that was the best decision they made.

Since I would take too long to accurately describe the hell we went through that afternoon/night, I'll do it in a shortened format:
1. They made announcments every half hour to an hour saying that they were working on the problem, and it would be just a little while. Which meant we were in a constant state of anticipation, and we couldn't go anywhere.
2. I was too cheap to pay for food/drinks, so I kept getting hungrier and thirstier.
3. I was alone, so I had no one to talk with, and no one to wake me up if I managed to fall asleep.
3A. I wanted to drink at the bar, but SEE #2 and 3 above.
4. There was a flight to Seattle that was scheduled to leave an hour after ours. I wished I'd gotten on that flight, but I think it was full.
5. I had no way to charge my iPod, so I didn't want to listen to it continuously for fear I wouldn't have it on the plane. Besides, the earbuds began to hurt my ears after awhile.
6. Terminal B at Logan is small, so there's not much to see or do.
7. Besides Partner and my folks, I had no one to chat with on the phone.
5+6+7 = I was bored!
8. We didn't leave until 10:15 that night!
9. Most people slept on the plane, but I could only doze off for 30 minutes or so.
10. Because everyone slept, a lot of the food was never used. We could've used it while waiting for 6 hours (although I was personally there for 9) at the gate.
11. On the plane, the flight attendant spilled tomato juice on me. I was upset but too tired to even say anything about it.
12. Partner had to stay up and wait for the plane in order to pick me up, which meant he wouldn't get much sleep either.
13. We didn't get home until 2am, but for me it felt like 5am.

Ultimately, I paid a heavy price for wanting to do a good thing and surprise my parents. Typical!