Yup, we flew on Friday the Thirteenth. Asking for trouble much? Well, it was a fairly crappy day, but at least the plane didn't crash.

After Mom mailed out packages, we did manage to pack everything away without major issues or suitcase breakage. Thank gawd. However, there was melting down at the airport anyway. I would just like to point out that despite the stuff issues, I NEVER got charged for having a too-heavy suitcase. Thank you. Mom got charged at Kona (no surprise there), but Aunt Susan got charged every dang time. In Lihue airport ($50 per heavy suitcase rather than $25), she decided to start repacking suitcases right there on the floor of the airport. Cassie bitched at Mom and me for having too many suitcases. Let's see, we're all allowed 2 and Mom and I have 3 in total, and you guys have 7....um, yeah, that's not US here. Mom yelled at me for mentioning a sign to Aunt Susan and I screamed at her, in public, "SHUT UP I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU ANY MORE!!111!!"

While we do fight a lot, the code of our family has always been to not scream in public. I broke that code and I am still ashamed about it. That was an awful thing to do, especially with all those people watching. (By this point in time, my relatives were unfazed by this. Though I am sure now that they bitched at great length about how much of a brat I am afterwards. More on that later.)

Incidentally, an FYI for future travelers:
(a) Inhalers count as "liquids" and have to be Baggied in Hawaii, even if this is the case nowhere else,
(b) Hold on to your pass, because they constantly want you presenting it in airport security, regardless of how redundant it gets after awhile to be checking your pass when you get into line, when you get up to the front, etc.

We uh, had problems in that arena.

We got into nice, frigid SF around 9:30 and spent an hour getting luggage back. Mom or Aunt Susan had been grabbing Smarte Carts usually at some point at every airport, but Mom finally hit her limit on dragging suitcases about and recruited a large cart and a skycap to help us in SF.

This led to all three of them screaming at her, "Tell him no! It's too expensive! WE don't do that!" Mom was all, "You pay $500 for dinner and you won't spend $20 for a skycap?" Since I ended up spraining my wrist dragging luggage around about 10 minutes later, I had to agree with that sentiment. (As of 7/30 when I am typing this, it still hurts. Obviously I can type, but lifting weight is still a pain. GRRRR.)

Sure enough, 24 hours after we were out for our last dinner in Hawaii, we were standing around in frigid SF, watching shuttles drive by. I said to Mom, "How have the mighty fallen."

We finally got home around midnight. Whee.

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