I am not much for leaving on holidays. Going on holiday is fine, being on holiday is superb—but leaving for a holiday is not my thing.
I am somewhat disorganized and generally behind on this project or pushing the date back on something else.
So my anxiety around leaving for a holiday stems from the fact that I simply dread having to drop everything in place and leave.
I was scheduled to fly out of Spokane at 5 a.m. on Sunday morning. I had planned to get a good night’s sleep in a Spokane motel but as it turned out I was late getting out of the house and it was becoming clear that I’d be getting to Spokane after midnight. I figured a few hours sleep in a motel would be better than none. But, silly me, I had neglected to make a motel reservation so I ended driving from motel to motel only to be told something about a big convention being in town and unless I could prove I was an Amway distributor they wouldn’t let me sleep there.
So that brief bit of sleep that was supposed to be better than no sleep turned out to be a couple of hours in the car in the airport parking lot.
I bounced out of the car shortly before 4 a.m. so I could check in an hour early. My itinerary would get me into Portland for a short layover before heading further south to Medford. Portland was where I was planning on having breakfast. So all I picked up at the Spokane airport was a cup of Starbucks hi-test.
Things were looking good for the next hour or so. I was on time and on budget! So was my plane and I soon found myself halfway to Portland talking to Lisa, a school counsellor from Spokane who was off to visit a friend near Portland for a few days.
The stewardess came up to us and after determining that I was indeed Pat Kelly, she told me I’d left my wallet at the Spokane airport.
This was a problem—no wallet meant no money. All I had was about $3.80 in Canadian coin.
I phoned the airport police when we landed and found out that they could Fedex the wallet to me if I set up a Fedex account. I wasn’t sure how to do that without money though.
The second option they offered was to forward the wallet to me COD. That wouldn’t work either—I had a rental car waiting in Medford and they weren’t going to give that to me without a driver’s license and a credit card.
The only option was for me to bite the bullet and fly back to Spokane, retrieve my wallet and then buy the tickets I’d need to complete the trip.
When I explained my problem to Alaska Airlines supervisor Wendy Hudson in Portland, she set about rerouting my day for me. She promised to have me in Medford that night at the latest. She spent at least half an hour and finally handed me my boarding passes telling me the trip was on the airline this time. Not only that, but I noticed the boarding passes were all stamped with my air miles plan number too. Bonus—I was a Frequent Flyer for one day there anyhow.
As an added bonus I got back home to Midway with enough boarding passes that I was able to wallpaper one wall of the bathroom to remind me of my adventure.