The Last of the D.C. Chronicles!!!

We gathered the crew together and headed to the car for the SAD drive to the airport. Everyone agreed that we needed at least another two days to see the things we'd missed...like the Spy Museum and the Holocaust Museum. We emptied our now UNCLEAN rental minivan (just use your imagination), FINDING the missing Declaration of Independence under the driver's seat, the loss of which had it's sorrowful owner in tears just that morning. We ditched the umbrella stroller which had pretty much been run into the ground and caught the shuttle. All smooth so far.

In fact, everything went just fine...UNTIL we got to security. Remember, we each had a maximum allowable carry-on duffel, plus an extra bag....including Lily. You can't fathom the confusion as we all ditched jackets and shoes, odds and ends, trying to get them through the conveyer system...all the while each holding onto a boarding pass. I vaguely noticed that Zachary was having some difficulty with his boarding pass up ahead, but he was a ways away since, as I've mentioned, he was testing his independence on this trip. In fact, on the flight to D.C. he had declared that his "one wish" this year was to fly somewhere all alone. So we figured he was handling it....

....until the security started walking a very white Zachary back towards us. Turns out they were quite upset because he was trying to get through on what turned out to be a receipt for our tickets instead of a boarding pass.

Now Tim and I are decent parents; we love and support our kids. But when we get flustered, we both have the weakness of...well....getting very flustered....which is exactly what happened.

The security guard demanded Zach's boarding pass.

Tim asked Zach what had happened to his boarding pass.

Zach told Tim that that one piece of paper (the receipt) was all he'd been given.

Tim replied that no, he'd surely given Zach the pass.

Zach was confused.

Tim searched his pockets.

We all checked our passes to make sure we only had one.

Tim asked ME what happened to Zach's boarding pass.

I pretended I didn't speak English and refused to make eye contact with the 100 people lined up behind us all.

Meanwhile my purse has gone through the metal detector along with two of my smallest children! (Well the kids went through the walk through thing, but you know what I mean.)

At this point, I became aware that another problem was sparking over on the other side of the detector with another security guard pulling Katie over to the side along with her shamefully oversized duffell.

I abandoned Zachary and Tim, both REALLY flustered by the way, and caught up with the other kids, where Katie's bag was being picked apart, dirty underwear and all.

I gave her the "look"....the "what now" look...and stood in suspense until the guard reached down deep and pulled out a .........SNOW GLOBE! Katie collects snow globes. I vaguely remembered her buying this one. Katie was about to cry thinking her snow globe was history....meanwhile, NOBODY had gotten through security since we'd clogged the whole thing up.

At this point I looked around and noticed that Lily was trying to climb the curved wall of the tunnel we were in and Tim and Zach were gone.

I grabbed Lily by the hem of her dress and hauled her to a chair, putting my knee on the edge of her skirt and turned to tell Katie that she was out of luck and should have realized that the snow globe had LIQUID in it! In fact, this was the moment when I mentally just gave up.

The security people must have realized that nobody intending to bomb a plane would create an incident of this magnitude, of this obviousness, so they somehow waived the snow globe and we headed to the gate, those of us who remained, anyway. I figured as long as I and the four kids left got home, that was ok...5 out of 7 isn't bad.

Thirty minutes later, Tim and a much meeker Zach showed up. Tim had left Zach's boarding pass in the machine, where it still was when they went back to look for it. They had again had problems because they had failed to get some lady's initials the second time through the line. We were the official scourge of the security department, and Zach decided he'd rethink the travelling alone concept for the next couple of years.

We weren't even phased when the voice on the loudspeaker announced that our plane had mechanical difficulties and our flight would be delayed by an hour. Par for the course. Tim took off to watch the end of the U.S. golf whatever, leaving me with a latte, Lily and a huge pile of luggage which we had to defend from a friendly little mouse who apparantly lived in the terminal and liked Easter chocolate. ...liked Easter chocolate a LOT!

I shall end with a picture of Lily, learning to play Old Maid. She really didn't like getting the Old Maid:

This was her reaction....

...each and every time she got the Old Maid.

They should print a warning on the box that this may be emotionally disturbing for children under the age of 4!

A few hours later, we were home safe and sound, our Washington D.C. adventures behind us, with many great memories, laughs and ideas for our next visit.

The End