Houston - Getting there

It had been a calm day at work when about 1:15 in the afternoon my husband telephoned. "Dru called. He said pack your wife and come to Houston." Saturday night was the opening party of the new Del Frisco's that they had both worked very hard on. To go meant we had to catch a plane from Atlanta that would leave at 5:30. My co-workers let me leave. I hate to miss a party. It is in my genes. So I made arrangements for my dog, dashed home, had a shot of BarleyMax, threw my best party outfit in the bag along with minimal other necessities, and we headed down I85. My husband used the skills he taught at the police academy in the high speed chase class and I held my breath and prayed. Even with all we had to do once we got there, we figured we made it in time! Atlanta's Hartsfield is enormous and of course, a pain. We got the tickets, didn't check bags because of the time crunch, got through the checkpoints, took the speeding bullet to the concourse, and breathlessly arrived at the gate. "You can't board. All the seats are taken. It is a sold out flight." We were two minutes late so they sold our seats! Even I - I was pumped - argued with this AirTran employee whose name tag was lost in the folds of her body, but neither she nor her supervisor who never made eye contact, let us on. I figure it is like trying to second guess a losing basketball game. Every play or every second contributes to the final outcome. We decided to see if there was another flight. Yes...on Continental. We retraced out steps and started back at square one. A compassionate woman at the ticket counter quickly assisted us to get tickets and we went through the process again with one addition. When we got to the place where we had to place our stuff in the dishpan and send it through x-ray on the right and walk through the poles where they look for box cutters and underwire in bras on the left, we were told, "You have been selected..." For a split second my natural optimism thought it was a good thing, but then I realized...prepare to be groped. Just another thing to slow us down. Whew...We got to the gate in time. The uniformed guy taking the tickets, said, "I'm sorry but this flight is full." Then the jokester laughed. I had been giddy for awhile by that time. The flight turned out to be ahead of schedule and after a $60 taxi ride from Bush to The Westin Galleria and fixing up, we were only fashionably late. As if anyone noticed. Moral of the story: Keep your sense of humor. You never know when you will need it.