Yokels Driving Around the Atlanta Airport

We picked up Rocky, his fiancé Sabrina, and Sabrina’s mother yesterday evening at the Atlanta Airport. They just flew in from Seoul, South Korea.

We had planned for the pickup at the curbside in front of the South Terminal to go timely, like a fine precision Swiss watch, but if it is one thing I should have learned in the past 67 years, nothing goes exactly as planned.

Our first step was to drop by Rocky’s house and check on it. While there I used the bathroom. I flushed it and nothing happened. Darn! I remembered – he turned off the water before they left. I wasn’t sure if I should try to figure out where he turned off the water or not and flush down my pee. I decided I had better let things be. I might turn the wrong knob and mess something up.

Rocky called and said they had just landed and were off the plane. We were at Jim & Nicks BBQ’s parking lot in Smyrna waiting on the call. We figured the drive around Atlanta on the I-285 and then several miles on Camp Creek Parkway would be timely enough to have us arrive just as they were walking out of the building. By the way, the bbq salads at Jim & Nick’s were delicious.

We were in two separate cars. Anna was driving our car and I was driving Sabrina’s vehicle. It took two cars to get them to the airport, so it would take two cars to get them back home. Luggage.

We went slowly by the front curb looking for them. A cop hit his fist on my windshield and told me to move on…. I scooted the heck from the insane cop and slowed down again. They weren’t there. I think I went around about five other times.

Anna and I were on the cell phone most the time discussing strategies. She found a little illegal place to park with some other illegally parked cars to sit and wait. I tried it one time but cars were speeding by almost hitting me, so I felt uncomfortable and moved back in the formation of going around and around the loop in front of the South Terminal.

Finally they got out of customs and they still had a long way to walk and they also had to go baggage claim so we might as well go to the hourly customs he told Anna on the cell phone. We both went to the hourly parking place and the place was huge. I had no idea where I was and how to note the parking area.... and Anna was driving around someplace in a similar situation. After I found a place to park I saw a lady in a uniform sitting in a chair by the ramp going over to the Terminal building. I asked her did she work there and she said yes. I told her my raging story of having the cop hit my windshield with his fist and cars on all sides of me moving and I went around and around and my wife was lost and she just leaned back in her chair and smiled or laughed at some of it and shook her head at others. I think she was paid to sit there and hear people fuss about the whole situation – to get it off their chest probably does wonders.

Just about the same time I walked over to the terminal they showed up with their luggage. We called Anna and she came gliding in and in the long run, we all made our destination.

Thank God for cell-phones.

We got them back to Sabrina’s condo.

Sabrina’s gated condo complex is across the street from Inman Railway Yard. The RR yard is blocked off from the public by a very long wall of some type. As we left we saw dark silhouettes of people doing graffiti on the wall. They reminded me of the dark figures that claimed souls as soon as someone died in the movie GHOSTS. I wish I had brought my camera.