We are celebrating our 64th wedding anniversary this month. Our tradition on that date, for years, has been to see if we could remember what we did on all the other anniversaries. We seldom succeed, but there is one anniversary that will never be forgotten!
It was to be the perfect trip–a week in Mallorca to celebrate our 25th anniversary. We were living in Brussels, Belgium at the time and after two years of dreary Belgian weather, visions of sun and sand beckoned enticingly. A vacation long in the planning, we were ready.
Our friend, Patsy, was to use our car in our absence in exchange for a ride to the airport. In order to make our 6 a.m. flight we had to pick her up at four which was a true test of friendship. Patsy is a night owl of the first order; I doubt she’d seen the sun come up in many a year. She was waiting in her darkened driveway when we arrived and quickly climbed into the back seat. When we pulled up in front of the terminal, we all leapt from the car, Patsy heading toward the driver’s seat, my spouse and I toward the trunk.
The anguished, simultaneous cries of “I thought YOU put the luggage in” were mingled with comments questioning one another’s intelligence. After issuing terse instructions to check in and get seat assignments while he went back for the luggage, my spouse sped away.
Patsy was to stay with me. I turned to her for the support a friend is supposed to offer at moments like this. It was then that I realized she was wearing a faded blue bathrobe over her frilly nightgown, slippers that had seen better days peeking from beneath. I left her on a bench near the entrance where she attempted to look inconspicuous while avoiding the stares of the impeccably dressed Europeans.
As I made my way toward the check-in counter I reached into my purse for our tickets, but my hand encountered something else–the house keys. I raced back to share this information with Patsy who immediately took charge of the situation. Grabbing the keys she said she would get a taxi and meet my husband at the house. But in order to do that, she had to enter the terminal on the upper level and exit on the lower one where cabs await fares
from among arriving passengers. She must have been quite a sight as she came flying out the door, racing ahead of everyone else in the queue. As she threw open the door and jumped inside, the driver turned to her and calmly said, “American?”
Praying for word of a delayed departure, I headed back to the check-in counter and explained our plight. The clerk told me the plane was due to leave as scheduled and that he could not give me seat assignments without husband or luggage.
Fighting back tears, I assured him he would be right back and at that moment, he was. I heard him before I saw him, frantically yelling my name; halfway home he had realized the keys were with me. I shouted the update, and he responded with a phrase I fervently hoped the clerk, observing all of this with an amused smile, didn’t understand.
The ensuing time was an eternity. As the two of them were dashing madly through the city there was little for me to do but wait and worry. Would they ever catch up to one another or would this farcical chase continue? Would we ever make it to Mallorca or had that dream disappeared along with our pre-payment? Would there be a 26th anniversary?
All such tales are supposed to end with the hero and heroine riding off into the sunset. Happily, this one is no different except that we flew off into the sunrise. The taxi waited for the car. The luggage was retrieved, and we were rushed by the formerly indifferent clerk through a private gate onto the waiting plane. And we were heard to exclaim, as we flew out of sight, “did you turn off the coffeepot?”
