Day 60: The stuff that nightmares are made of

We got up and started trying to feed the kids every bit of food that was left in the house.  There was a ton of it!!  As we cleaned and gathered it soon became apparent that π had lost his key.  We figured it would turn up if we just kept cleaning up so that’s just what we did. 

After an hour, panic really started to rise.  I tried reminding myself that, ‘It all works out in the end,’ like President Hinckley used to say.  It kept the panic at bay, but we still didn’t find the keys.  Our ten o’clock check out time came and went and still no key.  The cleaning crew arrived around 10:30 and still no key.  I called the rental car place to find out what the cost would be to get a new key.  Are you ready for this?  No really, you ought to sit down before I tell you. 

The woman from Hertz was kind enough, but she had no clue.  So she turned to the lady next to her and this is what I heard through the phone.

“We charge $!000 for towing , $500 for a replacement key and $200 for the roadside assistance.  Then you’ll need to rent a new car for the remainder of the day so you’re looking at just under $2000.”  Her tone was one of condemnation and scolding.  How dare that irresponsible woman lose track of such an important item! 

I laughed at her then.  She was confused by my mirth. 

“Are you alright Ma’am?” she asked.

“Oh I’m fine.  I’m just laughing because I’m thinking of the review I’m going to write about your company.  You want to charge me $2000 for losing the key to your car?!  That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard of.  That’s twice the charge for renting this car for the past month and driving it the entire length of your country!  For a key!!  Thanks, I’ll solve this problem on my own,”  I said, then I hung up on her as she was trying to rebut what I’d just said.

I called my credit card company just to find out that my road side assistance is only good in the US and Canada and that there really was nothing they could do for me.  (And all this time on the phone was costing me .20/minute!!)

By noon I was a gigantic abscessed nerve ready to snap.  The house was almost entirely clean.  They’d only found a pair of shorts Jordane had left and a box of weird stuff for Mireya’s braces—that was it.  In a last ditch effort π was going to go through al of his bags one more time while I called a tow company to see what our other options were. 

The tow company basically told me they could tow the car (only about $200) to the airport for us, but they couldn’t make us a replacement key because we’re not the legal owners of the car.  Fair enough, only Hertz was going to charge us $500 for a $200 key!!  $400 is still an exorbitant price to pay for a lost key, but it’s a heck of a lot better than the original $2000 that I’d been quoted but $700 was still something that I wasn’t willing to even consider as an option!  I was on the verge of being physically sick as I hung up the phone and heard é call from below,

“FOUND IT!!!”

I wept.  Tears falling down my cheeks I sunk to the ground and offered my thousandth prayer of the day, this time one of extreme gratitude.  The lady in charge of cleaning the house must have thought I was crazy, on my knees in the driveway crying like that but I really didn’t care.  She’d been so good to us, offering whatever suggestions she could think of to try and help us out.  She just smiled as I composed myself and we both asked, “Where were they?!”

In.  My.  Purse.

WHAT!?!  I wasn’t even home when π got home, how could they have ended up in my purse?  That will forever remain a mystery. 

We loaded three car loads of crap into two cars and away we went!  We had lunch all ready to heat and eat so we headed over to Vaiari’s house that she’d so graciously offered us to use to while away our extra day.  When we got there we were surprised to learn she’d picked up pizza for lunch!  Such a sweet and caring lady!  It’s inexplicable that I’m going to miss her – but there it is.  I totally am.  She’s amazing.

The kids loved that they had instruments and that they were welcome to stay and swim in their pool while we ran our last few errands.  We pulled into the airport car park at 6:15—two hours before our flight.  We returned our cars and headed for the gate. 

Up till now, we’ve never had our carry on luggage weighed.  Still, I’ve made sure to keep it within the limits that the airport allows—although I’ve gotten a bit lax.  Well, this time I flubbed up!  I totally thought we had 15 kilo’s per bag when we only had ten.  We spent the next hour with a fairly friendly lady shuffling our stuff all about.  In the end we had to pay an extra $210 for the weight we were bringing back—and most of that was clothes. 

By the time we got to the gate, they were just starting to queue up.  We walked straight into the line and breathed a deep sigh.  By the time we were all sitting in our seats on the plane, I was weary to the bone and hacking up a lung!  My cough had turned terrible.

Luckily for me, I’ve got the best kids in the whole wide world and they’re just old pro’s now at air travel.  They were settled in their seats just as quickly as I was!!  I got my bags stowed, turned around to help them and there was nothing to do!  They were all sitting with their seat belts on with beautiful smiles on their faces.  I leaned against π and was headed to lala land when we heard the scream. 

A holy terror in the form of a three year old little girl was displaying her parent’s need for Super Nanny to come for an intervention.  Her ear splitting protestations was earning them more dirty looks than the freaky family of ten with the barking Mother had been getting before!

A smile bubbled up from deep inside of me as I reached down into my bag.  I pulled out a stuffed kookaburra that we’d purchased as a gift this afternoon and leaned through the seats in front of me and started talking to the shrieking eel.   It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a tantrum turns off when distraction techniques are employed!  She hugged the kookaburra and we started up quite the conversation!  We decided it’s name is Bluey—and that’s okay that it rhymes with Lui—and she has kookaburra’s all over in her back yard and they have blue wings too!

It wasn’t a 3 minute interaction but it did it’s job.  She stopped screaming, sat down and started playing a video game while eating a lolly.  Her Mum was so grateful she’s told me several times already on the flight what a ‘darling woman’ I am for my help.  And I promptly forgot about the missing key and the overweight bags and the headache and the tummy ache and all the rest because I helped somebody!!!  How that one little tiny nice deed is capable of wiping out the worst day of vacation so far, I’ll never know.  But I’ll never forget the lesson it’s taught me!

Oh, and K wants evidence of her many injuries of the trip--here's where she scraped her leg up on the swimming pool today.