The last leg of an incredible week of friendship and celebration was for me to take our granddaughter to the Atlanta airport. There she would fly unaccompanied to Indianapolis to meet her mom to take her back home. With her dad, our son, in San Diego and her mom in Indiana, she is a seasoned traveler. She has been flying unaccompanied since she was seven years old. I had been on the pick up end of this process, but I had never been on the hand off end. Last year I had the opportunity to fly with my granddaughter on Southwest Airlines. There were three unaccompanied children on that flight so I was able to see for myself just how well they took care of the children in their care. I was not the least bit concerned about her safety and welfare.
With all of that said, I had rather have a root canal as to drive through Atlanta, Georgia. With apologies to those who suffer with actual PTSD, I experience a sort of PTSD on that trip. Sixteen years ago I dealt with a traffic incident in downtown Atlanta. The torment of the situation lasted about two hours before I had any sort of relief. Recalling the incident later in my counselor's office, he said, "You had a classic panic attack." Two minutes of a panic attack is a long time. Two hours is cruel and unusual punishment. My psyche never forgot that incident.
The drive to the airport south of Atlanta gave me two bad choices. I could drive straight through on I-75 south or take the I-285 bypass. I decided to drive straight through as I usually do. Although part of my brain knows that there is signage above the interstate instructing me to the airport, I set my BPS for turn-by-turn directions. The GPS gave me another level of comfort. A few minutes down the road my granddaughter asked, "Big Dave, can I have your phone?" "Why don't you use yours?" "Because I don't have Netflix." So I turned off the GPS and handed her my phone. No matter, I'll activate my GPS when she's through watching her movie.
The traffic started backing up about fifteen miles north of Atlanta as I had predicted. That wasn't a problem since I had built that time into the trip. I asked her if I could have my phone back and she said the movie wasn't finished. Now I would have to take my chances with those signs. South of Atlanta I started seeing the signs to the airport. I followed those signs to the north terminal and to the parking deck. An airport parking deck is a prison where I can get trapped for the rest of my mortal life. One night when I was in the wrong exit line the machine swallowed my ticket. When I got in the right line and explained that the machine took my ticket and that it said I owed $30.00, she said, "But I have to have your ticket." This discussion went on about ten minutes when I finally said, "I can stay here to the second coming or you can take my $30.00 and let me through." She finally conceded. Another time I couldn't figure out that I was supposed to put my credit card in the same slot as the ticket. With traffic backing up behind me, I finally saw the button to call an attendant. But I decided to deal with all of that when I left the airport. My granddaughter handed me my phone as we walked to the terminal.
At the Southwest ticket counter she asked me if I was her father. I said, "No, I'm her grandfather." She said, "I show her father is to hand her off." I said, "Well, I'm not her father, I'm her grandfather." Then she asked for me for information that I didn't have. After a couple of phone calls I gave her the information and she gave us our boarding passes. The security line was long and ended up rather intense and invasive, but we were finally on the other side. We grabbed lunch and with granddaughter in tow, we walked together to our gate. We arrived at the gate with an hour to spare. When we sat down I pulled my phone from my pocket to catch up on Facebook, my email and the news. The battery was nearly gone. I didn't know what happened when the battery was totally depleted, but it couldn't be anything good. But I would watch it to be sure that didn't happen. As I booted up Facebook my granddaughter asked, "Big Dave, can I have your phone?" So I gave her my phone for her to watch another movie. After about forty five minutes she handed the phone back to me and said the battery was dead.
As an unaccompanied minor they called her up first to board, with a lump in my throat I hugged her goodbye and she disappeared alone down the ramp to the jet.
But my work wasn't done. When you hand off an unaccompanied minor, you are required to wait at the gate until the plane is in the air. So it took another forty minutes for everyone to board, the plane to taxi to the runway and get airborne. At that point the attendant said, "She's in the air; you are free to go." Instead was taking the tram, I needed the exercise and enjoyed the thirty minute walk. I found the walk and the moving sidewalk enjoyable and relaxing. Besides it bought me a little time before facing the parking deck. At Ground Transportation I noticed one of those kiosk machines where I could prepay my parking ticket. Since it was in the car, I walked to the car and retrieved the ticket and walked back to the terminal to use the machine. After inserting the ticket and my credit card, it gave me my ticket back and told me I had an hour to leave. In the car I tried to activate my GPS, but even with it plugged in with the battery totally depleted it didn't work. Apparently, it's resurrection takes a little time. I would have to trust those signs again. Driving toward the exit gate, I was more that a little anxious that something would go wrong and car would back up behind me while I figured it out. Inconveniencing people is a cardinal sin. I got to the machine and inserted my ticket as instructed and the voice said, "Please wait." Please wait for what? For their computer to reboot? For Christmas? For Christ to return? Wait for what? After what seemed like an eternity, the gate opened and I drove through to freedom.
My wife called me before I got out of Atlanta to tell me that our granddaughter was safe in the arms of her mother in Indiana.
I followed the signs that were very plentiful and clear back to I-75 and followed I-75 back home. Because of the traffic through Atlanta and about fifteen miles north of Atlanta,what used to be about a two hour trip took me about three and half hours. But ten hours after I left home for a ninety mile trip, I was home.
A few hours prior while my granddaughter and I had been in the worst of the traffic north of Atlanta she asked me if we were nearly there. I said, "We're not far from the airport, but because of this traffic, it will still take a while." She looked at me, smiled, and said, "That's okay.. That's all the more time I get to spend with my Biggy."
If she needed to go to the Atlanta airport today, I would gladly take her again.
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