We completed the first phase of our move with a long plane flight. It was hectic, and we were hungry, sore, and exhausted, but overall it went well. There was a chain of last-minute dramas with things being closed on Memorial Day that conflicted with scheduled dropoff times set by the company; paperwork that needed to be done; people picking up things that didn’t show up; etc. that kept injecting changes to our plans.
The big negative was a TSA employee that didn’t believe I was hard of hearing and got abusive because I was being “difficult”. I truly couldn’t understand what was being said because of all the background noise, which I tried to explain, but they seemed to just get angrier and took it out on me by repeatedly slamming my bag and dropping individual things they took out (making a show of it, holding each thing up and looking at me then dropping it) onto the counter and yelling angrily at me. I looked around to see if anyone else could see how they were acting, but their coworkers all pretended not to notice. When they had finished going through my stuff, I asked if there was any problem and they just tossed the bag toward me without warning, which gave everything another slam as it hit the counter, and turned and walked away without responding, which ended the interaction. Fortunately, nothing seemed to be broken, and the kids didn’t see it. (They were already through security with my wife and older son and in the airport waiting for me.) There was another time at the same airport when one of the TSA workers seemed to be mentally ill. He was a huge guy and was leaning over the divider screaming about water bottles at various people, including an elderly woman in front of me, that had to walk by through the roped-off maze in front of him; then he also abruptly walked away and sat down. (I couldn’t tell whether anyone he was yelling at actually had a water bottle or not; I didn’t.) Unfortunately, it’s predictable that these things will happen when you combine power over others with a lack of accountability, and it gives the other TSA workers who are doing their job well a bad name and might make it harder for them in the long run.
The big unexpected positive was our checked bags. I was very worried about them. There were a few irreplaceable or expensive items in them, but they all arrived and were available to pick up right away. Nothing was missing, stolen, or damaged, as far as I can tell, and all of them held together. One was just a cardboard box taped together (we ran out of regular luggage and bags), and when it got to the airport, the handle holes on the sides were starting to rip out to the top. I reinforced it with the last bit of tape I had on the roll to try to stop it from getting worse (I didn’t want the entire box to come apart), and it worked! Everything was under the 40-pound limit and fit in the size constraints. (If any hadn’t, we would have been in trouble.) I couldn’t have asked for better regarding our luggage, much better than expected. Of course, the best thing of all is that we all made it safely and without injuries.
We are now in a temporary situation and staying with a relative until we can nail down the logistics of the next step of the move.
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