Let's start at the...END???

I'm a chronological blogger for the most part. When I blog, it's usually a "thinking post" or an "informational family post". Pretty much when my posts are bringing bloggers up to date with the happenings in my life, I start at the beginning. Not today. I want to start at the end.

Most of you know that DS 1, my brother Dan, and I went to Ohio to surprise my Grandma for her 88th birthday this weekend. We had a great time. I DO intend to go back and fill in the missing events from the weekend, but I am limited on time to blog right now. So before I go back and fill in with pictures (which is easy to do), I want to tell you the part I don't want to forget.

It's all about coming home.

We flew out on Monday afternoon from Louisville, KY. There was a better deal if we left from there, so we made the four hour drive between the airport and Columbus both at arrival and departure. On the way, I think I mentioned to DS 1, "I hope we can remember where the car is parked at the airport in Tampa." He had the ticket, so we didn't talk too much more about it.

My brother in the meantime, tells us about losing his car in the airport once and walking from floor to floor looking for it. He mentioned that he "knew" he was "higher" than the first floor, so he never went down. [Side note: Keep this detail in mind. It's going to be important in a moment. And suffice it to say, I DIDN'T keep his little story in mind until later.]

DS 1 and I arrived in Tampa at 10:15PM. We had our bags by 10:30 and headed out to the parking garage. DS 1 looked in the pocket of his shorts that he wore on departure day...but he couldn't find that little ticket that told us where our car was located. Both of us were sure we had an idea. And we could at least use the key to "beep the lock".

Down we went to floor 1. We peered out the elevator doors and didn't see the car, but we KNEW we'd parked right in front of the doors and low in the lot. So, DS 1 beeped the horn from the remote key. We could hear it "calling to us"...but it didn't sound like it was on floor one. It was a distant honk.

Up we went to floor two. We could still hear it...but it wasn't in front of the elevators. Now there ARE several elevators. So we walked and beeped until the beeping stopped. Then we'd turn around and walk in another direction until we couldn't hear the beep anymore. We repeated these steps SEVERAL times. In fact, we even found a young couple who were in the "We-search-for-our-car-for-an-hour" club.

DS 1 looked at the assistance phone and it said to "dial 3 for help". Turns out the other club members DID that exact thing and found out that if you know your plate number they can tell you exactly where it is.

Now, picture what I'm picturing. It's almost the middle of the night. We are SCHLEPPING our stuff around several floors of a very large hot parking garage. We find a phone to use for "help"...and all I can think is there has to be a guy sitting in a room somewhere watching the whole thing on security cameras with sadistic glee! I didn't want him to tell me verbally where my car was...I wanted him to get in a cute little golf cart and TAKE me to my car!

DS 1 determined that he knew my tag number. Almost. It is one off from my DH's (who knew?). So we called DS 2 who really wasn't too happy about being asked to go outside at that hour to look at his Dad's car plate number. I am pretty sure he picked up on the fact that his Mother wasn't happy either! In fact, by that time I was quite CRANKY!

He gave us the number and we called the "help line" in that parking garage. I barely got three numbers of my plate out when the parking lot guy tells me that my car is ONE FLOOR BELOW US. And he was quite amused because "another couple just called and their car was almost in the exact same spot"! I won't even go into the fact that I really wanted to know how they KNOW that! It's not like we stop and give our numbers on the way in! Weird!

Perhaps our trouble was because the floor is labeled on the elevator as "Floor BC". What the heck does "BC" mean? We were on FLOOR 1. Sure enough...we went down ONE little story and there she was beeping away when we called (Ok pushed the button) for us to come find her!

Now, on this end, it's a funny story. DS 1 reminded me in the midst of it all that we just needed ONE MORE STORY to make the weekend even MORE memorable than it was. And it was good for a laugh. Whatever!

As always, there are lessons to be learned. Like...

* get the card and put it somewhere SAFE so you don't lose it
* sometimes answers are closer than we think
* usually there's a signal that can guide us in the right direction...we just have to look (or listen)
* looking on the bright side is more fun
* you might arrive at the solution differently than you expect to do so

And, as usual, there's that "kicker" of a lesson...

* you never know when you might be some parking lot attendant's middle of the night entertainment!

Hey, it's all for the cause, you know?