Giving Back Sunday

When going on a business trip, I've always found it easier to slip out early in the morning while everyone else is blissfully asleep. Leaving on Sunday, giving hugs, waving goodbye, and wasting part of the precious weekend at the airport all just rub me the wrong way. A bad start to a worse trip. It's been snowing since before mankind inhabited this planet. How is it that we're still brought to a standstill by the fluffy white stuff? Maybe air travel is a dead end. We may want to look into tube technology. Although, I'm sure I'd have to share my tube with a fat guy and a two-year-old who screams "no" at the top of her lungs, over and over, for forty minutes. She even overcame my innate Dad ability to block out the sound of a crying child (sorry honey, I would have gotten up but I didn't hear the baby crying). Here's a tip for the parents: repeating "you're OK" over and over does not seem to help as clearly, she is not OK. So my two hour flight only took four, no problem. No problem until I discover that Avis' night shift is comprised entirely of one elderly gentleman who is apparently here on the worker exchange program from Tibet. Then just to add insult to injury, I arrive at a completely abandoned Sheraton Hotel to be greeted by a computerized self check-in system. Only too bad for me because, as it politely informs me, the self check-in is closed between 1:00 AM and 3:00 AM. Because why would you want the self check-in to be operating when the reception desk is closed? I guess even computers need a break. Oh well, I can only comfort myself with the knowledge that the voyage home will probably be worse.