Aug 072019
 

We came home last night around 10 and must have stood by this clown for a solid five minutes going through the mail before I noticed that it was new – so that tells you:

  • How many clown things we have in the house that this was like ET sitting in a pile of Bertie’s stuffed animals,
  • How desensitized we are as a household to clowns,
  • How fucking exhausted we were

It was probably the worst travel day I ever had but in hindsight, it could have been a lot worse and we were still fortunate enough to at least get home on the same day. Having a mood-swingy teenager doesn’t help things though and he was actually angrier about it all than we were! He was like That Person in a long line who loves to state the obvious. “This is line is ridiculous!” “I just want to GET HOME.” And it’s like YES, EVERYONE DOES, YOU CRANKY WALLSTREET BUSINESSMAN. Jesus, Chooch!

On the express train to Incheon Intl :( Chooch got a new Apeach plushie (his favorite Kakao character that he calls Peachy Boi); he calls this one Bumble Boi.

Mostly he was fine though and we were giddy because on our Korean Air flight home, Henry had to sit in the first row of our cabin and we were in the last. It was actually the last row of the whole plane and was glorious because the bathroom area was so spacious and I took ample leg-stretching breaks back there.

Everyone in our entire row was awesome–Chooch has a Korean girl (about 9 or 10) and her dad next to him. I was on the aisle but the guy across from me was so quiet and inoffensive and I felt blessed. However, there was a family in front of us with three very young girls, I would say 6, 4, and 3 if I had to guess. Look, I’m not one of those people who shoots parents scowls and whatever when their baby is crying because that’s what babies do and I had a baby once and understand that it is not always easy to get a baby to shut it down. But these kids were fucking out of control, jumping off the arms rests, scream-talking to each other, watching videos on a tablet with the volume on and no headphones, putting their feet on the backs of the seats in front of them (god be with those people), dropping their shit constantly (I picked up pillows for them more times than I care to admit) while their parents slept and watched movies. It was so out of control that one of the flight attendants came over and shushed then because BOTH PARENTS WERE SLEEPING and they were using their playground voices x10. Korean Air, you guys are way nicer than I would have been if I was working on that flight. It was an absolute mess.

Also, Chooch bought one of those long fucking non-retractable umbrellas in Seoul because it was rainy while we were there and it didn’t fit in any of our luggage so GUESS WHO INHERITATED IT FOR THE 24+ HOURS OF TRAVEL BACK HOME? CHOOCH AINT IT YALL.

Also x2, I was mad because we saw them when we were boarding and two of the girls were fighting so I said, “LOL I hope they sit behind you, Henry.” He came back to visit us at one point (we told him not to because we didn’t want to be associated with him) and he was like “haha I see you guys got the kids” then he was in the flight attendant’s way and we were like GO AWAY YOU ARE SO EMBARRASSING!

He tried to make a joke when we were checking in because the seat he was assigned was one of the designated baby seats. “I’m not taking the seat from a baby, am I?” he dad-laughed and the Korean Air lady said “no” with no signs of getting his lame humor.

Our catchphrase on this trip was DEFINITELY “Oh my god, he is so embarrassing.”

Anyway, once we landed at shitty JFK (what a shock to the system after being in beautiful Incheon), we were told our flight back to Pittsburgh was delayed by three hours. That wasn’t great but whatever. We had just sit down at some Irish pub thing to eat and before we had a chance to order, we found out that flight was outright canceled. If I was a kid, I would have been like YAY MORE VACATION TIME GUYS! but I’m not a kid and both Henry and I had to work the next day because we’re crazy people who are like “fuck you, lol” to the face of jet lag and our only options were get a flight in the morning or go to an entirely different airport and fly out at 5:25. It was already after 2:00 but the Delta lady said it was an option and that we would “probably” have time which sounded super reassuring, let me tell you. I wasn’t about to sleep in shitty JFK airport or pour more money into a hotel in fucking NYC, so…we took that option. Of course, Delta couldn’t be expected to find our luggage fast enough so the guy at the baggage counter was like “Just go, don’t miss your flight over this. We’ll get the luggage to you” which hopefully doesn’t turn out to be Famous Last Words but we took his advice and got a Lyft to LaGuardia where we had to go through another security check in but at least this one only took 15 minutes as opposed to the nearly 90 minutes at JFK. (They’re going to be hearing from Chooch the airport critic.)

Anyway, in the bathroom at LaGuardia, two woman came not even that close to walking into me and both were like OMG EXCUSE ME SORRY! and I was actually startled because after two weeks in Korea and Japan, I had grown accustomed to being plowed over unapologetically.

Then that flight was delayed to the point where we took off at the time it was supposed to be landing – at 7:20pm. But…it was a short, safe flight and a lot of the people on there were in the same situation as us where they transferred from JFK, so the flight was like a college mixer – it was the chattiest flight! There was a total love connection blossoming behind me (good luck, Stephen and Kendra!) and it was kind of nice to be on a flight with so many people going home to Pittsburgh, Yinzer accents and all.

According to Delta, our luggage is supposed to be delivered to our house today (just checked the tracking and it’s in PIT customs as of 4AM so there’s that at least) which is great but then Chooch and I decided to walk to Dunkin’ Donuts because we obviously have very limited foodstuffs in the house right now and I wanted coffee and he wanted a breakfast sandwich but then I realized that I packed the little purse that has my credit cards in it because I didn’t think I would need it at the airports since I had my passport in my backpack and Henry had all his cash and credit cards on him. So we had to scrounge up all the cash and change we could find all around the house (I had $3 in my eyeglasses case for some unknown reason and Chooch found quarters in his room) so we had like $5 but somehow our total was over $6 because of bad math on our part so we had to redo our order like sad orphans with a line of people behind us and then slide over our crumpled monies and mound of change and it was so depressing. So depressing.

So now it’s 7am and I’m properly caffeinated (got to drink out of one of my new coffee mugs from Korea which somehow ended up in a carry-on, yay) and I’m just soaking it all in now, all the things we did and experienced and how much I appreciate it all! And how happy I am that I got to give Chooch this chance to see some of the coolest places and how we have so many new inside jokes and how Henry didn’t murder us in Tokyo and how the first order of business for Chooch today was to find Perks of Being a Wallflower on Roku after reading it in Korea and falling in love with it. (He’s watching it right now and is so happy lol.)

I have so many pictures and thoughts to organize but I’m excited to start recapping the trip on here because it’s like reliving it all over again and it was the best vacation of my life!

(Also, my mom spoiled the cats so much that they couldn’t care less about our return home. But they had no problems chowing down on the Korean cat treats we brought back for them!)

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