Irony

Irony

 I ran into a couple of problems on my trip back from Bremerton.  Offspring #1 really wanted to drive me to the airport but I hated to inflict a minimum of a 4 hour drive on the new father.  So I took the ferry to catch the light rail to the Seattle/Tacoma airport.  No problem, right?  I took the light rail to the airport 18 months ago.  A week earlier I accompanied Offspring #2 to the same light rail station.  I knew where it was.  Plus I had a picture of the google map of the route on my camera. I knew I had to walk 2 blocks up and 3 blocks to the right from the ferry terminal to get to the station.  No problem at all.  The whole family was kind enough to leave the house at 6 a.m. to ride the ferry to Seattle with me. This gave me an extra hour of grand baby holding time.  And I got to be part of her very first boat ride.   I found it hard to leave her but did manage to do it without tears.  Wearing my backpack and pulling my suitcase I walked to the train station.  A homeless man without any teeth explained that the station was padlocked shut.  I kinda didn't believe him.  He told me where to walk to get to the next train station and after he walked away I looked.  He was right.  The entrance to the building that housed the train station was padlocked shut with a thick chain.  I started walking to the next train station.  I came upon a man and a woman also wheeling suitcases.  When we waited for a red light I asked if they were looking for the light rail to the airport.  They said they were.  I told them I would follow them.  In a heavy German accent the man said he didn't think that would be a good idea because they weren't sure of the way.  They had scouted out the first train station last night and it wasn't padlocked.  We walked together.  At another red light I asked a Seattle police officer where the train station was.  He pointed the way.  We walked there.  The second train station was padlocked shut too!  This is a Saturday morning at 7 a.m.  We didn't know why the stations were locked. No signs explained what was going on.  The website never warned us about closed stations.  We came upon a young man with a backpack and another traveler with a suitcase who were confused why the station was locked.  The young man had to get to work and he took off running toward the Seattle stadium.  The woman traveler said she had used this train station many times before.   Then she got on the phone and ordered a cab.  She looked up at us and asked, "Should we all share a cab to the airport?"  In an instant I knew the answer.  "Yes!" I said.  I looked at the German couple and spoke for them, "We all want to share a cab."  Bossy, aren't I?  She ordered the cab.  The ride would take 25 min. and would cost $45.  With the tip it would come to $13 each.  I looked in my coin purse.  I had a ten dollar bill, two one dollar bills, and six quarters plus pennies and a dime.  Wow!  This was meant to be.  A very large black car pulled up.  The trunk was so large the four suitcases fit easily.  We three women fit in the back seat while the German man and the cabbie rode up front.  We had a nice talk on the way to the airport and they all admired my photos of my new granddaughter. Looking back I can see that I was surprisingly calm about these travel problems.  I wasn't anxious.  I wasn't worried.  I figured if I missed my flight I'd catch the next one.  We got to the airport about 8 o'clock which was slightly earlier than the light rail would have gotten me there.  Once there we saw the light rail train arrive.  So the light rail was working but the downtown stations were padlocked shut.  Go figure.  I got frisked at security because of my titanium hip.  The TSA agent also wiped my clothes with a cloth and tested it for bomb materials.  I passed all the tests.  But on Monday I realized that the last time I saw my driver license was while, arms held out straight from my shoulders, I was being felt up at the airport. She even ran her finger inside the waist of my blue jeans. I worried about my drivers license on Tuesday.  I called the Seattle airport lost and found office on Wednesday to learn they did not have my license.  I know it is illegal to drive without a license so today, after work, I applied and paid for a replacement license.  Less than 90 minutes later I open my mailbox and, lo and behold, someone from Alaska Airlines mailed my license to me.  Irony.