My parents came in to Guam this past weekend. Usually that is a pretty uneventful thing. We just go down to the airport (five minutes away) and pick people up and bring them back. It goes pretty smoothly. NOT THIS TIME!
Their flight was supposed to come in at 1:00 AM. So Jen and I left the house a little after 1 to go meet them at the airport. By the time the parents get the bags and make it through customs and all that, it takes about a half hour or so if you're lucky, especially when there are four adults and a baby.
We thought we were getting there in plenty of time. Jen drove her car and I borrowed a friend's vehicle so we could get all the luggage and people in one trip. (I usually can't carry very much on the bike with me, and I sold my Tercel last summer.) Anyhow, we showed up at the airport around 1:20 or so. And we waited...and waited...and waited. We were curious what was taking so long, but I have had problems with finding my luggage here too, so I was willing to wait. 2 AM rolled around and they still hadn't come out the customs doors, so we thought something was up. So we tried calling their cell phones to ask them how much longer. Surprisingly, their phones don't work on this side of the world. Oh well, we'll wait a bit longer.
2:30 comes and goes so I decided I would go up to the ticket counter and see if they were even on the flight. I didn't realize that Continental abandons their posts between 2:25 and 2:35, so their wasn't anybody up there. The lights were on, but nobody was home. We waited some more. 3 AM arrives and we were pretty frustrated, not to mention tired, at this point so I decided to check and see if the hotel had heard from them. They said, "Oh yes, they checked in at 1:30!" HOLY COW!! 1:30?!? An hour and a half ago?! Ten minutes after we showed up at the airport!!
I thought, "Jeez, couldn't they wait a couple minutes for us before they called a taxi?" "Did they run or just walk quickly to the curb?" I was TICKED! I had school the next day! I told Jen that we were going down to the hotel to wake them up and yell at them for not waiting. If I didn't get to sleep that night, they weren't going to either!
We went down to the hotel and found their rooms. One had a privacy placard on it so we banged on that door first. The other didn't, so I called them from the courtesy phone in the hallway. This post is long enough already, so I won't drag it out any longer. I spoke roughly to the folks for a little bit, just to let them know I was mad. Here's why they left early. The hotel had a van sent down to the airport to pick them up. They were standing outside customs with signs that had my dad's and brother's names on them. Naturally, they thought I had set the whole thing up like the thoughtful, loving son that i am. Right. That's why they didn't try to call. So after I was rebuked for not even thinking of doing such a nice thing for my folks, we sat around and talked for a while. We ended up going to breakfast at Denny's and then getting ready for school because we stayed up all night. Needless to say, we were all pretty tired the next night.
Welcome to Guam Mom, Dad, Justin, Becca, and Josh. I'm glad you're here.
