I'm home from my week-long vacation with my family at the lake. Just smoked a bowl and made a desperately-needed snack. I just had the worst airport experience of my life, now that it's over I need to express the shittiness of the day I just had.
Normally I use United Airlines to get between Chicago and where I live, because there is a cheap nonstop. This time, however, I had to use American Airlines for the return flight because United had nothing available today. First, the only thing they had was a flight with a 4 hour layover in a city that is a 20 minute flight (20 minutes in the air) from where I live. Okay, whatever, that sucks but no big deal. When I got there, though, it was showing as delayed departure from 8pm to 10pm. Also, in security I had my bag selected for inspection because I had a big block of cheese in there, they searched through my whole bag and sensored it and shit, pretty annoying. Anyway, I really wanted to get home as soon as possible, and not wait around in the airport for 6 hours (4 was bad enough already). So I decided to leave the terminal and go get a one-way rental car and drop it off at my destination airport (where I left my car), it's less than a 2 hour drive. I got to the rental kiosks (via walking in intense heat outside with a laptop/keyboard/mouse and large duffel) and waited in a very slow-moving line, only to be told that there were no one way rentals at all today, I had to return it here. I went to every company's kiosk and everyone had the same answer. So finally I walked back to the gate (got special searched again for that cheese), and waited. And waited. Got some reading done so that was cool at least. Then they started moving back the departure time by 25 minute increments. Kept telling us it was almost here. The gate got moved each time too. Finally, we got on the plane at 10:50, and they told us we were all required to gate check our carry-ons because there wasn't going to be room in the overhead bins, but when we got in and they were closing the door, about 80% of the overhead bin space was free. We started taxiing at 11:10. Then we just sat somewhere on the runway for 50 minutes with no word until they finally said a brake sensor light was on so we had to go back and get it checked out. Then they said it was a false alarm, but that they found a different thing (didn't say what it was).
Finally it was about 12:15 and they said they were canceling the flight, and that all the flights to my town the next day were booked solid, so "sorry", no offer of help. Everyone started to get pretty loud about it, by this time some guy in the back was laughing every time something new happened. Three girls sitting by me and I started talking about getting a 4-person Uber, would have been $30 each. Then everyone up near the front (I was in the front row) started saying we were gonna band together and talk them into getting us all ground transportation, because a lot of people (including myself) need to work tomorrow. At first the flight crew was being quiet but after we all started being loud about it they said it got canceled because my town's airport closes at midnight, but they're gonna see if they can get them to reinstate it anyway. Fortunately they did, and we finally took off at 1:00. The flight literally took 20 minutes and we were down, but the landing was really sketchy, the brakes seemed to do that thing where they shake the vehicle somewhat, he basically had to pump the brakes, the plane was wobbling and I'm pretty sure we almost didn't stop in time before the end of the runway. So I guess there WAS something wrong with the brakes after all. Finally, to top it off, they told us they had to send all our carry-ons to baggage claim because of some sort of mix-up with the compartment of the plane that they put them in. They said to wait by the door and they might be able to bring some bags. They brought over a cart full of them, but that was only about half of it. Then we watched as a cart got the rest, but instead of driving to us, they drove it away. Had to wait another 25 minutes for baggage claim then, seemed to make no sense at all. But at last I've made it back finally.
I began the day with a fitful slumber during which I had a series of dreams where my front teeth and all my right top teeth had been smashed out, I didn't feel pain or know how it happened, but they were just jagged nubs of varying degrees of completeness. It was very vivid and I was really freaked out, especially because I kept waking up from that dream into another dream where they were still smashed out and each time I felt the relief of "oh man, good thing that was a dream", only to realize that it hadn't been a dream after all. But as uncomfortable as that was, it was a lot better than my airport experience towards the end of the night. I really half-expected to wake up and still be in my parents' guest room bed and it was just an anxiety dream. Worst part is that I wanted to get back at a reasonable time to see my girl, because I haven't in a while and I really miss her, but seeing as how I got home at 2:30am, that hasn't happened.
Of course, the worst part of my day was definitely when I said bye to my dad... he has advanced ALS and can barely speak anymore, it's hard to understand and very quiet. I realized that I might not ever hear his voice again except on phone calls for a little while, if he can even project enough. He was still really groggy from waking up and the morning hangover of his meds, but he still sort of cried, but I felt too numb/shocked to cry (we have cried together about it before a couple of times though). When he can't speak I don't know what he's going to do, he wants to stay alive until he can't breathe at all on his own (he already uses a machine that assists his breath whenever he wants it to, which is a lot of the time). But he's extremely uncomfortable all the time, he has a ton of anxiety, he can't do ANYTHING by himself (think about that, he even has to ask my mom to slightly adjust his head or get a hair off his face). He asks my mom or anyone around (they also have a live-in caretaker who helps my mom and is pretty great, she came on vacation with us) for stuff constantly. I mean you don't even realize all the miniscule things you need that you do semi- or unconsciously by yourself. How will he communicate any of that stuff to anyone else? Every moment of every day is degrading and miserable for him. I think he really wants to die actually, I think he can't wait, except he also doesn't want to leave us. The part I feel the most sorrow over is that the role of caretaker/caretaken at this extreme level has radically changed my parents' relationship. My mom resents him a lot, it's so obvious in the flippant things she says in front of people or to him. I can't exactly blame her because he is so anxious and stressed out that he can be rather insufferable. It didn't start that way but it's slowly progressed from two people really close and in love, each others' best friends, where my dad had just retired and they were going to travel and do all the things they meant to do together at this time in their lives. They got to do a few of those trips early on, but my dad relatively quickly started requiring increasing amounts of care, and over time it's become this horrible situation where neither of them are at all happy. I'm not sure that if he miraculously recovered and went back to normal, that things would be the same between them at all. And my dad sees that with full clarity and it absolutely devastates him. It's not just taken him from her, it's transformed everything so that it twists and destroys everything for 4 or maybe 5 years first. ALS is a fucked up disease. It might actually be my worst fear.
Come to think of it, it puts my ridiculous airport day into perspective.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
Not sure how to deal with it really. I think it's like every step of this process... first I'm numb, then I start to process it.
you didn't happen to order some alpacas did you?? :D
I really feel for you and your family. I hope your dad finds peace you know? Whatever that is... ALS sounds like a nightmare. 
