For someone who loves to experience new places, I have had the worst luck on travel days. My partner and crime plus my OG travel buddy is my father. He will forever and always be my favorite person to travel with because of three reasons. We always arrive on time, I always have TSA pre-check, and we get to hang out in the admirals club. Traveling with him is pure luxury and we never seem to run into any problems, plus we always manage to escape the never-ending lines. He is the human version of a six-flags fast pass.
Now, traveling with my mother is a different story. It just so happens that we switch roles and I play mom and she plays daughter. Fun fact: there has never been a trip where we did everything successfully, and today is the day I share one out of my three horror stories that involve traveling with Carmella Marie Lembach.
I’ll start us off with the most dramatic travel day of all time. This just so happens to be the most recent too, it was our adventure to Rivera Maya for senior spring break. The chaos begins bright and early at 4:00 am for our 6:30 flight to Minneapolis. We packed the car the night before and were surprisingly ready to go by 3:50 which was shocking. As my father is driving he is speaking out loud asking if we have the following things. Passport? ID? Sunscreen? Flat iron? With him being the only male in the house and always being accompanied by three girls, he understands our forgetful tendencies. The funny thing is we always answer “yes” agitated but end up forgetting one of the things he mentions in the car prior. Anyways, we arrive at our terminal safe and sound and are ready to endure the brutally long travel day ahead of us. Our first inconvenience was our boarding passes. Typically our problems begin within thirty minutes of being present at the airport, but this time was different, it was as soon as we stepped in front of the kiosk which was probably two minutes after getting out of the car. The flashing red lights demanding attention to our station was let alone the most embarrassing moment of my existence but possibly getting escorted to someone who could help was even worse. The lady looks at my mother and me and says these words: “I’m afraid to tell you we can’t print out your boarding pass because your boarding pass and your ID doesn’t match up.” In other words, my mom’s name is Carmella but she put Carmie on her ticket. They told us we had to call Expedia and request a name change. Forty-four minutes later and conversing with the stewardess in Spanish the name was changed. We rushed to security to get our carry-ons checked and SPRINTED to gate E8. We were the last to board and just to our luck we were on the plane for an hour because there were technical issues with the plane. We found out during our flight that we will be missing the conjoining one so we knew right away that we had to talk to someone to book another flight. As soon as we get off the plane we were directed to talk to an employee to assist us with our next flight. This surprisingly took five minutes and she happened to get us into a flight that was already boarding. Again, we sprinted to yet another gate and were the last to board for the second time in two hours. By 11:00 am my mom and I completed a 5k in the airport, we were vacation-ready. Thankfully there were no technical issues this time and we arrive safe and sound in Rivera Maya three hours later. We get off the plane, go to customs, and go to baggage claim. As soon as we thought our day was done, we find out our bags are in Michigan..
Traveling has never been our cup of tea, but we have accumulated some of the funniest stories that I can’t wait to tell my children. Enjoy the following pictures that express my mother and I’s inconveniences Saturday, March 26th, 2022.
