When I park at the airport or anywhere massive and confusing for that matter I take a picture to help with my vehicle search. I usually depict the nearest provided marker as I am just looking for a general vicinity to narrow down my search. Last night I landed after a particularly draining week of training (unintentional poetry… you’re welcome) and just wanted to get back home.
Baggage claim was unnecessarily difficult because the airport is still under its never ending renovation. I secured my luggage and prepared for the weather which was miserable. Negative double-digit windchill and ice knives disguised as snow. Luckily I was heading to a covered just not enclosed parking structure so some of that would be mitigated. Miserable nonetheless.
I tell you this to set the stage. I’m in a shit mood, tired, and once this quest begins, increasingly cold. I get to Red Level 5 and begin looking only to be met with deep regret about my lack of a hat. As I shuffled down the aisle my focus quickly moved to the real possibility of losing all or part of an ear. I quickly scooted all the way back into the heated vestibule to dig out the hoodie I had taken on the trip.
I didn’t want to unbundle, put on the sweatshirt, and re-bundle, so I just put on the hood and let the rest dangle off my back like a special needs adult wanting to wear a cape. Back on the hunt I proceeded to march up and down the row with no luck. The cape kept trying to blow away so I unattached my backpack from my roller bag and put it on over the hanging hoodie. This pulled my shoulders back just enough to make me look even more ridiculous.
After what seemed like an hour but was actually ten minutes I went back inside to regroup. The looks I was getting as I tried to fish my phone out of my pocket whilst harnessed were priceless. I needed to study the picture for clues. My glasses were completely fogged over thanks to the extreme temperature swing so the phone was right up my my face when a very kind woman asked if I needed help.
Her voice was so sweet and as I tried to see her squinting through the haze of my eyewear I realized that she was ready to assist an obvious slow-adult in need. I tried to rally by pulling off my glasses and fixing my posture as much as possible all while using bigger words than necessary but it was a shitshow. I did just enough to convince her that she wasn’t abandoning someone with few survival skills and she walked to her car.
That bought me enough time to be able to see my phone again and I think the embarrassment adrenaline cleared my brain fog because along with the ramp color, level number, and row letter, was my car. It’s the one left of center in the picture. Not 10 steps from the door I’d been coming in and out of. I walked by it at least 6 times! My tired brain was in search of my old vehicle that whole miserable time.
I was so happy that the nice woman was nowhere in sight that my entire evening turned around. In fact, when one of my friends called to shoot the shit I almost told him the story but he started talking about something he read here so I shut up as to not spoil a later read. I need to get back to my post road trip sanitization protocols but I wanted to write this down while it was still embarrassingly fresh.