Murphy's Law

You know, the one that says if something can go wrong it will?  Yep.  That's the one that pretty much controls my life, and today is just another example of it.  All I wanted to do was to get home to Chicago after finishing my year teaching abroad (more reflections on said year to come), that's not too much to ask, is it?  Apparently, it is, because the Travel Gods certainly did not make are not making things easy today. 

I knew starting today, that the 1 hour and 55 minute window I gave myself to catch a connecting flight from Miami to Tampa was cutting it close, but several people assured me this shouldn't be a problem (I won't name names, but I have a Facebook status as support).  It shouldn't have been a problem, except that our flight from Cali to Miami took an extra 25 minutes.  Ut oh.  This left me racing as fast I could from my seat in 27A through the plane, up stairs and escalators, running passed and bumping into people while shouting "Que pena!" to the English speaking couple that sat next to me on the plane.  I got to Passport Control, cut a bunch of people missionary group (I know what you're thinking..."karma") to catch up to David who was ahead in line.  Then when it came time to choose the passport line, it turns out I picked the line with the slowest officer ever, who I later saw type one fingered to enter in the information for the girl ahead of me who also happened to have filled out her paperwork out wrong.  Awesome.  At that point, people who had been behind me and had not run and cut lines had in fact gotten in and out of passport control at least 4 people ahead of me.  Damn.  Off to the races again to get luggage, go through customs, recheck bag, go through security again and book it to my gate with about 40 minutes left.  Of course 5 different airport workers told me 5 different places to recheck my bag before I could continue running to security.  I made it through all of that with about 10-15 minutes before plane was scheduled to take off and continued to run until I found the flight information board to find my gate, I was goign to make it after all.  Then I find that my flight had been delayed 45 minutes.  At this point the dripping sweat and ridiculously red face felt really unnecessary, even more so when the flight was delayed another 20 minutes, so a grabbed a wrap from Au Bon Pain, sent a few "I'm here!" texts, and watched Obama's speech on immigration.

Flight to Tampa boarded and the stewardess gleefully stated several times that our short 35 minute flight to Tampa should be pleasant and apologized for the delays.  Except that when we were descending, there was "VIP action" in Tampa, and we didn't have clearance to land.  Turns out Obama was in Tampa, costing me another 15-20 minutes in the air, and getting my landing time way too close to my 4:30 take off from Tampa to Chicago.  Luckily, I was in 10B this time, not so lucky that I was stuck between the bronchitis brothers who hacked their way through our flight while I tried to read Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal.  I got off the plane pretty quick to find that my gate to Chicago was right next to the one I cam out of.  Perfect.  Delayed to 4:45.  Kind of perfect since I was cutting it close anyway, and now I can board with ease.  Except, no one else is boarding yet, and the plane doesn't appear to be here...hmmmm.  That would see to make it difficult to take off in 25 minutes.  As I went to check that I hadn't missed anything and that my baggage would make it to the plane, I overheard the woman at the counter tell someone else that there would be further delays and she would make an announcement soon.  The estimated departure time sneakily changed to 6:00pm and about 10 minutes later we were informed our plane was in Ft. Meyers due to storms approaching Tampa.  Great.  Guess I have time for a coffee and parfait from Starbucks.

And theeeeennnnn they got my order wrong at Starbucks.  Shocking.  Six months since I have had Starbucks, I'm the only person in the place, and they manage to get it wrong.  Sheesh.  It wasn't worth complaining so I attempting to slurp on what they made me and embraced the free WiFi at Tampa International.  And now as I have written this, the delay has extended another 45 minutes, a total of 2.25 hours late, as of now.  Who knows when I will actually make it home, but one thing's for sure I know it will be damn worth the wait.

What Happened to the Cupcakes?

Well the good news is that I have lived in Colombia for almost 6 months and haven't been robbed yet (knock on wood).  Two weeks in Chicago?  Not so much.  Now having been born and raised in Chicago with a grandfather who worked as a Chicago Police Lieutenant, I should have known better. And for the vast majority of 25 years I have; I have even shared my tips for avoiding getting your things stolen with many, many people.  Some pretty simple ones include: lock your doors and don't leave things in your car that could entice thieves.  The former I managed to remember when returning to Chicago, the latter...not so much.  The day before I was going to visit David's family in Iowa, I stayed at my friend Tessa's after we went out with friends to watch the Hawkeyes in their bowl game.  Since I had to take 90 to Dubuque and was already north, I was going to leave from Tessa's in the morning.  When I got to her apartment I was already dressed and ready to go, was feeling quite lazy and figured I could borrow some pjs to sleep in from Tessa, so I didn't bring my duffel up with me to her apartment.  Stupid.  While I remember thinking about my own advice to others about leaving stuff in the car, I probably thought "what are the chances anything is going to happen?" (Clearly I lost some of my Chicago street smarts while living in Cali) The answer: 100%.  There is a 100% chance that if I leave things in my car for probably the first time ever in 25 years that it will get broken into and said things will be stolen.  And so, most of my Saturday morning and afternoon were spent in tears trying to figure out what to do and eventually making a very late arrival in Iowa. 

I could go through the list of all that was stolen from my car, but I won't.  Anger might yet again set in.  Now, little more than a week later, I can look back realize that it could have been worse: I wasn't in my car when they were trying to take my things, they got in without breaking the windows, they didn't steal my car etc.  I can also laugh when I think about the ridiculousness of it.  Now you might be thinking: "Laugh?  That's a strange reaction to being robbed..." and you are correct, but here's what I find so funny:  they stole my cupcakes.  Yep, remember those cupcakes! I slaved over?  They were on the floor of the back seat to take to Iowa for David's family and any potential NYE party we might attend.  Gone.  36 deliciously filled vegan and car bomb cupcakes stolen.  Bastards.  Pardon my language.  But seriously?  They had to take them all?  Sure help yourself to one or two, they looked scrumptious, but leave a little for the rest of us.  Sheesh.  And so you see, I laugh.  Because really, who gets cupcakes stolen from them? 

Unfortunately, these aren't the only weird things I have had stolen over the past two years.  Had I started blogging a year or two ago the bottom of this post would read something like this: "You might also like: 'Where's all the laundry detergent and Bounce?' and 'When our shower products went missing'" because, yes, those have both happened too.  Back in March 2011, my apartment that I shared with my friends Erin and Meaghan was broken into while we were at work; they got in through the front window.  It wasn't until later that week that I asked "Erin, do you know where all our laundry detergent is?"  She didn't.  It took about 5 minutes to realize that the only conclusion we could come to was that it had also been taking during the break-in.  I was going to use the word "logical", but there is nothing logical about that.  And then there was the time I was subleasing an apartment for a month before moving in with said roommates in the Summer of 2010.  David was visiting and so when I went to shower and couldn't find my shampoo or any other shower products, I thought perhaps he was being a comedian.  Nope.  Someone somehow had taken all of our shampoo and shower products.  We concluded that they got in the shower window because I found my razor sitting on an outside ledge across from the window.  Even stranger: they took nothing else.  We didn't tell many people about the incident, mostly because it was just weird. 

I guess the good thing is that I can go back and laugh at these situations, and for the most part, move on.  They aren't the best scenarios by any means, but are they the worst that could happen?  Certainly not.  Are the pretty humorous?  Absolutely.  Regardless, I'm still hoping to be robbery free in 2012, even if it leaves me with a few less weird and funny stories to share.