August 18-Perfect Timing

Luciano and I went to dinner with Jon and Erica since Jon was leaving for Cambodia that night, and we are leaving for Boston before he gets back. We found out that Mel was going to drive him to the airport and thought it would be fun to do ourselves, so we offered. We left their house at 10:40 PM. for a 1:50 A.M. flight...plenty of time.  As we were driving, I decide that I want to rub Luciano's shoulder and as I did, he took his eyes off the road for a split second. All of a sudden we heard a crunch under the car with no idea what it was. The flat tire sensor lit up, so we pulled off the freeway and parked in the Cerritos post office.

Luciano pulled out the spare and the tire kit but without much light it was difficult to do anything. While Luciano did that, I called AAA and they said the driver would be there within 30 minutes. Jon became visibly more and more nervous. He called a cab company and while on hold called his dad. I could just imagine Mel climbing into bed, happy that he was getting a full night sleep as the phone rang. The cab driver couldn't get to us for 20 minutes so Jon didn't have him come and waited for Mel instead. As he waited we called 411 for the number of his airline to try to get in contact with them. Of course, he was given the wrong number, so he tried to call the expedia(or whatever booking engine he used). With no luck.

Mel arrived at 11:40 for the 1:50 flight. This was cutting it close for the 2 hour check-in time needed. When we tried to load the luggage into the car, somehow Mel couldn't unlock the car. Desperately, Jon banged on the car, ran around it trying all of the doors while I tried the doors and some knocking too. Finally they unlocked and we loaded Jon in as our tow truck driver arrived. They drove away. Our spare was on within a few minutes, and we drove away. I kept praying that Jon would get there on time.



By 12:08, 28 minutes later, he sent us a message that he was all checked in for his 1:50 flight.


(In case you're wondering, we changed our tire today. Costco didn't have a tire for us, so they reimbursed us for the one that popped and we only had to pay an extra $15 to get a new one from the place across the street)