I am not about to confess my very old story about being overweight – although I succeeded in eating my way through our Home Leave. I’m talking about what happens when a family of five, including four females, embarks on an odyssey to shop for a year’s worth of shoes, clothes and practical necessities that will carry them through next year’s Home Leave and then tries to fit all of it on their return flight home.
Yep. We managed to have ten checked suitcases of which five were drastically overweight! We ended up entertaining the small group of onlookers at the check-in area by assembling a family crew to weigh, shift, sort, allocate and re-weigh for 30 minutes straight! It’s a time to appreciate a small town airport, for attempting this maneuver in Detroit Metro would be impossible. And we succeeded. In the chaos, one bottle of hairspray hid out in a carry-on to be quickly detected by our observant security staff. I wasn’t going to let that ruin our day and managed to run it back to check-in (I was not going to leave a bottle of Biolage spray behind).
As we relished in our success, the airline declared the plane overweight and offered $400 vouchers to volunteers willing to take a later flight. Tempting… but we passed on that. We figured since we were surely a significant cause of their dilemma, the least we could do was take the flight! But we weren’t the only ones to blame. There were a couple of other families to point fingers at. Maybe the family heading back from Home Leave to their Thailand location with 9 checked bags and golf clubs. Or maybe the large group of Chinese business folks heading back to Shanghai.
The worse to wear was Jon who brilliantly took front-line command and management of the whole operation. It was all popcorn-watching worthy!
So now to wonder what we actually packed given that we shopped obsessively. Even Velveeta Cheese, Miracle Whip, Pam Cooking Spray and Chili Seasoning mix made the trip. The excitement will begin when we unpack the suitcases. I’ll let you know how many times we say “why did we think we needed this”… or better yet “why doesn’t this fit three weeks after I bought it”?
LOL!
It was so great to see you in Michigan. I hope Kelly and I can get ourselves together enough to plan our trip to visit you and the family in the coming year as I'm sure the trip would be unbelievable! I have my own issues keeping up with my blog so I say this was the understanding of how hard it is to stay current...but please remember we love your updates on this blog. Your public needs your updates!!!!
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