Trying to catch a plane...

The past week has been CRAZY!

It started late Monday with a drive north to Wausau for the Wisconsin Inclusion Institute.  On Wednesday, it was a whirlwind return to Edgerton at 3:30, a load of laundry, a few minutes with the kids, and off to a nice dinner with Jodie and some friends.  Arriving at 5:30 gave us some time to talk outside at the lake as we watched the lobsters boil over and dinner was ready at 7pm.  The challenge was that my ride to the airport was supposed to be at 7:10pm and I did not have any food yet.  The next 17 minutes were a blur as I grabbed my first lobster and had my friends and the restaurant owner cracking it for me as I ate corn on the cob and baby reds.  I took the pieces they gave me, dipped it in butter, and threw it down like popcorn chicken bites.  As my friend was waiting outside- I did not realize that he had been told by a multitude of people that we were leaving waaaaaay too late to catch our flight in Chicago.  I confidently told him, "we'll be fine".  I flew outside with a box of deserts in my hand, apologized to him and grabbed my bags from our van.  One side note, the laundry never did dry, so many of my clothes were still soaked from the trip to Wausau.  I threw the wet clothes from my car to his as fast as we could and headed down to Chicago.  On the way, the conversation was excellent, but every few minutes we were aware that we were going to be late.  I called the airlines when we approached a standstill on the interstate due to an overturned semi-trailer.  She said that they would write a note for the plane and they would wait up until 9:55pm for us.  We arrived at the parking lot at 9:30pm.  Quickly we ran out, took pictures of where our car was, and opened the trunk to a mess of wet clothes and four bags that were already full.  I decided to start throwing on clothes and start running to the train to get to our gate.  As I was running I realized I had two pair of shorts, 5 shirts, and a jacket on, and I was carrying a full backpack and a laptop bag.  We dashed for the platform and waited 5 minutes for the train.  We thought we were going to be fine, until we arrived at the international terminal and were overwhelmed by an enormous group of people with what seemed like 4-5 bags each.  We were quickly buried by people and bags.  When we arrived at our terminal we politely as we could (not real politely by polite people standards) pushed to the front of the train and dashed through the terminal, down the escalator, over a dozen or so other passengers until we arrived at the TSA gate.  My boarding pass was on my iPhone which was down to 3% battery... I was hoping that I could get it scanned before it died.  Just as we got up to be scanned one of the people we passed came directly to the front of the line and was chastised loudly by the TSA agent, "I don't care WHEN your flight is, get back in line".  Michael and I looked at each other and handed over our phones and IDs and we were through.  Gate K18 didn't seem like it would be far from there, but it had to at least be a 1/2 mile from the checkpoint.  We both started running.  The thing is, I was already sweating from the extra clothes and the dash to the checkpoint, but it was already 9:56pm, so we had to run.  As I was running, my bottom pair of shorts was falling off, I didn't wear a belt because I knew I was going to have to take it off in the checkpoint.  Sweating, breathing heavy, carrying two bags, and pants falling down I took off coming quickly to the realization that there was going to have to be a Plan B.  About halfway to the gate I had to stop to breathe and adjust my pants, the bottom pair of shorts were now literally at my ankles and the top pair were sagging but safe, but, no matter what I tried I couldn't get the bottom pair up, so I kept running, as I was greeted by someone who said, "slow down, you're going to have a heart attack", which I replied, "as long as I make my plane".  Just as I look up and see Michael, arrive at the gate, turn and yell, "its delayed - we're fine!".  I slowed to a walk, set my stuff down, and started peeling off layers of clothes, soaked with sweat, I had finally arrived... well, arrived to the gate.  I wasn't really aware of the adventure that lay ahead of me the next few days.  All I could think of was, "I don't believe we made it".