The Adventure Begins (written at 7:00pm on 8/23)

I thought that adventure waited for me in Italy, but it turns out it couldn’t wait to get to me. Let me tell you the story.

Once upon a time, Maria got to the airport (half an hour away from her house) at 3:00pm for her 4:31pm departure. When she went to check her bags, it was generally discovered that Maria was not in possession of her passport. This was because she had made a copy of said document just before leaving her house. While her father jumped back into the car to retrieve it, Maria’s sister Rose realized that she no longer had a ride from the airport to the Greyhound terminal in Pittsburgh for her bus to Cleveland that left at 4:15pm. Maria and her younger sisters, Angela and Christiana sat down in a panic while Mother Sengenberger bravely waited with Rose for another bus into Pittsburgh. The ladies at the baggage check area said that Maria must be there by 4:01 to make her flight. Father Sengenberger had barely enough time to make it!

Thank God for good neighbors. Christiana called her dear friend Jane, who lived next door. Jane is in possession of a key to the Sengenberger’s house, which has come in handy in multiple situations. Jane rushed across the alley and began a search of the living room and sun room to find the missing passport. It was discovered to be still in the scanner, at the computer. This heroine then sped toward the airport in her car, and met Mr. Sengenberger halfway there. THANK YOU JANE!

Father Sengenberger made it back to the airport at 3:55pm. Christiana was positioned at the door, and her track training cam e in handy as she relayed the passport to Maria, already standing at the baggage check-in. Neither piece of luggage was over the fifty-pound limit, and the Sengenberger clan rushed down to security, where more trouble awaited them.

After a sadly hurried goodbye to her dear parents and sisters, Maria jumped into the security line, forgetting, in her rush, to remove her laptop from her backpack. The nasty computer guy who probably doesn’t have a life anyway yelled at her, and told her to go back through the little scanning gate. Which she tried to do, the first time bumping into a lady coming through the other way (Maria must learn to look where she is going!), the second time forgetting to re-remove her shoes, and the third time, she made it through. However, at this time the stress had caught up to the unfortunate, empty-headed girl, and she began to cry. She went through security again, laptop removed, with nice security ladies comforting her and telling her to stop drawing attention to herself by crying.

Jumping on the shuttle and racing up two flights of escalators, Maria made it to her gate five minutes before they began to board. PHEW! And Rose managed to make all of her connections!

Now she sits in Washington, D.C., mildly panicked about her flight to Munich begin delayed forty minutes and wondering how she will make her connection in Munich, which is supposed to leave forty minutes after the original landing time of the Washington flight.

Maria now has a list of things she will never do again, including, (1) leaving her passport home when flying internationally, (2) forgetting to take her laptop out to be scanned, and (3) crying in the security line.

Stay tuned, this is not the end.

Signed, the Sengenblogger