If I mention to my friends that I have to go to the airport, they look at me with horror.  People hate to go to the airport.

I figure I might get some sort of award because I have made NINE runs this summer and I am still alive to talk about it.  I’d say I was still sane, but my kids wouldn’t agree with that.

I swear the airport used to be an hour and a half away, but they somehow moved the whole dern thing in the last couple of years.  Ninety minutes into the journey and we’re still not even close.

We have to allow time for traffic, stops to get drinks, then of course potty stops because we’ve all had so much to drink.  Now add to that the fact that you’re supposed to arrive at least one hour before your flight, and well, it’s an all-day affair. 

If it’s a two-o-clock flight, it involves a whole new problem.  We’d have to leave the house by 11 a.m., and we’d all be starving by the time we got there.  And since the whole airport is under construction, it’s hard to find anything to eat.  If you do, it’ll cost you a week’s pay.

So, we usually decide to eat on the way.  Allowing for an hour to eat, we now have to leave by 10 a.m.  In Teenager World, this is equivalent to the middle of the night.  The word “summer” means “I get to stay up late and sleep late even though my parents still have to wake up early, ha-ha.” 

Just last week we took my nephew to the airport.  His flight wasn’t until 9 p.m., but because we had about five other stops to make while we were in Houston, we kept moving the departure time earlier and earlier.  And we had to allow time for lunch AND dinner.  Can’t skip those meals, no sirree.

I went to wake up teenager #1.

“I really don’t want to go … I don’t know him that well anyway.”

“It’s your cousin.  Get out of bed.”

I moved on to teenager #2.

“Do I really have to go?  I stayed up really late last night.”

“Yes, you have to go because it’s your name on the ticket.”

“HMPFIRHG>GR.”  (Translation: “Oh, yeah.  I forgot.)

I know every parking garage, every terminal, and every security guard at the airport now.  There was one really nice one that helped me find my car on the first trip.

The guys who check car’s trunks for terrorist stuff pretty much just wave me through now.  They can’t figure out how come I am at the airport every week with a different kid, but they know by now I’m not a terrorist.  I’m pretty sure they feel sorry for me, though.

I have discovered the wonder of EZ Tag on the toll road.  I always figured it was like buying a season pass to Astroworld, where you pay one big price up front and maybe you’ll get your money’s worth, or maybe not.

On trip #3, as I was languishing in the paying-people lane, I gazed with desire at the cars whizzing through the EZ Tag lane.  Oh, how I longed for such freedom. 

I am proud to say I am the proud new owner of an EZ Tag, and it turns out it’s nothing like a season pass.  I zoom through with the best of them and look at the peons with pity.  If only they knew.

I’m making my last run of the summer tomorrow.  My daughter has a two o’clock flight, but it’s an international flight, so she has to be there TWO hours early. 

Egads.  We need to leave by sunup.