Marion and I are dragging suitcases to our car in the hotel parking lot. We scanned the room three times and double checked all of our possessions. It’s too early for the free breakfast line in the lobby, so we are headed out to find a quick bite before heading to the airport.

I lower my tired body into the Mini Coop.

“You didn’t take your meds yet, did you?”

Marion knows that if I take my daily dose of old man pills before eating, my stomach turns over and makes my eyes turn green. I look at her with a blank stare for a moment.

“Good grief. I think I left my pill bag on the bathroom counter.”

I checked the zippered pouch on my suitcase. No pill bag.

The front counter guy politely makes another key for room 217 and I take off for the elevator. No big deal! Only, the key doesn’t work. I swipe, tap, and slide the key. No luck. So, I’m hustling back down to the lobby. The hotel agent is busy with another customer.

He starts to make another key for me but decides that he will just go up himself to make sure I get inside the room. His key works. I grab the pill bag feeling stupid and follow him back to the lobby. By the time I hit the front door to the parking lot Marion is on her way inside.

“Did you have to stop for a potty break?” she asks.

The best thing about leaving for the airport four hours before your flight is that it leaves room for the unexpected delay. Like having to go back inside the hotel room AFTER you’ve already turned in your key. But all is good. I can taste the coffee and breakfast sandwich as we pull into the parking lot.

We walk up to the doors at Tim Horton’s and the dining area is locked. Drive Thru only at this hour. So, back inside the car, we place our order at the kiosk. At the window I ask the young man for extra sugar and creamer for Marion. She likes her coffee with some adjustments.

“That’s a regular with cream and sugar,” he says.

I repeat myself. “I’d like to have extra if you don’t mind.”

He hands us our bags. We pull over to the side of the parking lot. I’m diving into the egg, cheese, and sausage croissant and I notice that Marion is still rummaging through the bag.

“Something wrong?”

“There’s no extra cream and sugar.”

And to make matters worse, her coffee is black with absolutely no cream and sugar. I offer to go back through the line, but she insists that she can tough it out.

“The first ten sips are the worst,” she says.

The airport is only 4 minutes away.

“I’ll get a good cup after we get checked in.”

As we turn into the airport, Marion is reading off the directions to the car rental lot. We follow every detail and still somehow wind up in the EXIT lane headed back out to the highway. I don’t know if U-Turns are allowed in Canada, but that Mini Coop will cut a circle inside a small living room.

Our second time through, as far as we can tell, we’re in the proper lane. We circle through the concrete alleyway, traffic on every side. This has to be right. Then next thing we know, we’re headed out the EXIT again, leaving the airport.

The third time was the charm. The car checked in, we begin walking for the departure terminal. Fourteen city blocks later we find the Delta kiosk for our checked bag. We plug in our flight numbers. Our names come up. But the machine will not allow us to check our bag.

We wait on the next available agent. She’s polite. Very understanding. She takes a look at our boarding passes.

“You have plenty of time,” she says with a smile.

Our bag is overweight by one pair of binoculars. We shift some items around, pay for the bag and head for Gate E78, which happens to be somewhere on the other side of the Great Lakes.

The TSA line is moving along. Not too bad. But every bag we own gets pulled for additional inspection. I lost my toothpaste in Atlanta before we ever got going. In Toronto, they took my mustache scissors. This time they took my fingernail file. Marion had too many liquids.

We make it to the gate in plenty of time. Two more cups of coffee. A good book and a little time to relax. Surely the rest of the day will go more smoothly.

At some point we realize that our seating has been changed. We are six rows apart on the flight to Vancouver. A minor hiccup. The flight attendant switches some folks around for us and we are off.

When I made the flight arrangements, I wasn’t thinking about the time change from Calgary to Vancouver. What was supposed to be a short layover in my mind turned into a race to board our connecting flight to Atlanta.

To start with, getting to our outbound gate was like hiking up the Athabasca Glacier. At one checkpoint we were asked if we were traveling with children. This may seem innocent, but we did enter the country with children.

“No,” Marion says to the nice man. “We came into Canada with two grandchildren, but we left them with their parents.”

I’m not sure this is the wisest response to a man with a badge, but he smiles and allows us to move on through. We stand in front of the facial recognition screen. Green light. The TSA line is long and slow in Vancouver. Our spare time is ticking away like the last seconds on a game clock.

Near the check point, the line splits. We chose to go left. We chose poorly.

The TSA agent scans Marion’s boarding pass and passport.

“I’m sorry Miss Laster. You’ve been selected for a full review.”

I can see the color draining from her face. She looks at me for help. Devoted husband that I am, I give her the good-luck-with-that shrug.

I’m loading my stuff into the plastic tray. Marion is standing off to the side while a uniformed lady is being very friendly with her personal space. Two other agents are combing through every zipper, pocket, and pouch, including inside the soles of her shoes. They confiscate her Leatherman.

The agent hands Marion her boarding pass with a big red stamp on it.

“Keep this,” he says. “If you lose it, you’ll have to do this again.”

We make it to our gate with about 5 minutes to spare. We’re breathing a little easier until we hear an announcement echoing through the airport.

“MISS MARION LASTER, PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE AGENT AT GATE D85.”

She walks up to the counter. The agent asks to see her boarding pass with the big red stamp. He thanks her. We walk down the ramp and onto the plane.

Good Lord, it’s nice to be home.