Early morning delivery

The world of business travel is such a glamorous one. Crammed into airplanes, surly airline employees, running through O’Hare because the plane left late because some idiot didn’t move the jetway away from the airplane, annual air-travelers who get in the way, lost luggage.

That has been my world the past couple of weeks. Last week it was Vegas. And I just got back from 2 ½ days in Austin, Texas. Not a bad place, really, for Texas. There are good bars and restaurants, lots of music, the bat bridge.

My bag didn’t arrive last night, but it showed up at 5:00 AM this morning! My phone rings and I see it’s the “Front Door.” Huh? Who is at the front door of my building at 5 o’clock in the morning? I usually ignore things like that, but I answered.

I have your suitcase.

Really?

Yes.

Ok, I will buzz you in.

For a split second I thought Gabriel was playing a joke on me because the voice had an accent.

Regardless, I was glad to have my bag.

I am heading back out tomorrow, but this is a fun trip. Every year my college friends get together in York Beach, Maine, for a reunion. Heather’s mom and step-father own an inn and they let us have it for cheap for the weekend. It is great fun, usually pretty chilly, a wonderful get-away.

But even this trip is not without drama.

A few weeks ago I invited Gabriel to join me. I figured things between us were going really well, he is always up for an adventure, and he has never been to Maine. He said sure, sounds like fun, and that was the end of the conversation. So a couple of weeks ago I mentioned it again because he needed to make his arrangements. He kind of balked, explaining he didn’t know what his work travel was going to be so he couldn’t make flight arrangements. He might be arriving from somewhere other than here and departing for another job somewhere else.

OK, fine, I let it go. He can make his own arrangements, but I forwarded him my itinerary on Southwest.

Fast forward to Monday night when he breaks the news that he can’t come to Maine. Something about an expensive ticket (no shit, you waited too long), not being able to charge the customer, blah blah. I was pretty upset and disappointed which for some reason surprised him (???).

For kicks I checked out a ticket prices on Southwest. It would have been $200. About $10 more than what I paid and I booked WEEKS ago. Am I missing something here? I did go to Expedia and saw that tickets on other airlines were in fact in the $600 range, which he claimed. But I can’t get past the cheap SW price. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want him to think I was checking up on him.

But now I can’t shake my feeling that he really didn’t want to do. Which is fine. It’s the lying I don’t like.

Or maybe I am overreacting, making this all up in my head.

But I REALLY need to let it go.

We haven’t seen each other in 3 weeks because of our different travel schedules so finally tonight we are meeting. It’s kind of weird, I feel like there needs to be some reacquainting between us.