Have you ever heard of the phrase "An Elephant in your closet". The idea is that you go along thinking thing are going good, completely unaware of that "Elephant" that is going to come out and sit on you. I had an "Elephant" experience this week.
Three weeks ago I got on line and bought one way tickets for Jenna and Courtney to fly home rather than drive across country with Tom and Matt. (Although I'm sure Matt is wondering why HE's driving across country with Jenna's Stuff???) So life is good...I'm sleeping well at nights knowing I've taken care of my kids!!
Then last Fri. Dad was looking at the tickets becuase he thought he'd gotten an email saying they'd changed something about our flights to Utah. Come to find out they'd changed my times so I was flying from SLC to Detroit and sitting there for 5 hours and then going to Louisville rather than a 1 hour layover. So he called Delta and said the longer layover got me into Louisville too late and it wasn't acceptable (Dad's so good at this!) and he got them to fly me from SLC to Cincinniti and onto Lexington, which is the very same flight that I'd booked Jenna and Courtney on! Life is still good. (Dad was going to be driving thru Louisville on his way home and said they'd swing by the airport and pick up the car that was going to still be there).
THEN he looked at the other tickets for Jenna and Courtney and discovered that I'd booked them for JAN and Courtney. (Now Life isn't so good. The elephant is starting to sit on me) I bribed him into calling the airlines and going to bat for me. He spent 1 1/2 hours on the phone with Delta trying to get them to change the names becuase it was obviously a mistake in the typing. The ticket had Jenna's birthday on it and they sent the confirmation to Jenna's email and he told them to check and see that I was ALREADY on the same flight that day on another ticket, so it wasn't like we were just trying to give our ticket to someone else becuase we'd changed our minds about flying that day. But they refused. Finally they agree to give me a credit for the ticket price but that was all they'd do. Now life is really not good becuase I've got to call Jenna and tell her that instead of flying home (4 hours) she's driving hom (28 hours). So Dad got on the computer and found her a ticket that flies from SLC to Louisville and it ended up being slightly less than her original ticket. He was hesitant to buy it becuase he said she'd get into Louisville at 5:00 and have to sit at the airport until midnight that night when Matt and him would be driving past and could pick her up, but then I reminded him that the car we were driving over would still be there for Jenna.
So in the end it all worked out well....Jenna and I just swapped tickets. It makes me wonder what other "Elephants" are hiding out in the closet waiting to sit on me though....