For those of you who know Linda, this will be no surprise. Linda had a holiday cruise planned with a couple of her friends - just a three day cruise to the Bahamas. Pretty straightforward, for most people. Departure today, from Port Canaveral, which is roughly a 3 hour drive from us. Her travel companions wanted to leave at 10am to allow ample time to get there even with traffic snags.
Linda, of course could not pack beforehand. We went to a holiday party yesterday and got home around 7:30pm, but Linda decided she could not pack last night, and of course had nothing packed previously. She decided to get up at 7am today to pack - this from the woman who commonly sleeps until 10am. She did get up around 7am, and of course is almost frantic in her packing. Surprisingly by 10am, she was packed and ready to leave our apartment - overpacked, but still packed. She had two full carry-on size suitcases plus other bags for a three day trip.
We still had to get to Tampa to meet up with her friends, but we were there by about 10:30 - not bad for Linda. So, as I said, a 3 hour drive over to Port Canaveral. About 2pm, I get a phone call, in her haste to pack, instead of grabbing her passport, she grabbed mine. She was at the check-in with no valid passport - for herself, anyway. Now boarding was till about 4:30 and I still had something I had to do in Tampa, so there was no way for me to drive her passport to her in time.
The customs official said they could not accept a photo of her passport, but needed a photo of her birth certificate. I never remembered even seeing her birth certificate. She told me to look in a 2 drawer file for a folder marked 'important papers' or something similar. I was on the phone with her while looking at each folder there, and nada. She then suggested looking in the drawer where we normally have our passports. I spent five minutes going through things there before finally finding a copy of her birth certificate.
I then had to shoot a photo on my phone, and text the photo to Linda's phone. Simple, at that point. I did, and later got a call from one of her companions that they were safely boarded. I was wondering if I'd have to drive to Port Canaveral to pick her up and bring her home. Her companions didn't want to go without her, so the vacations of three people would have been screwed up if I hadn't found the document. Just a part of life with Linda.
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