Ticket Trouble

It seems like time for some humor in my life, and hopefully in yours, too. So, here is another of Doah's stories.

Mommy travels a lot, so you would think that she would learn how to handle airports and tickets—but she does not. I guess she is a slow learner. She keeps making mistakes about which airport to go to, when to go, and where her ticket is.

Very recently, she had flown into Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC without incident. Wow! A first! She was so pleased. When she returned, she went to the airport early. That was a first, too. She usually runs in at the last minute. She was so proud. Moreover, there was no line as she walked up to the counter to get the boarding pass for her electronic ticket.

"I am on your noon flight to Phoenix," she told the ticket agent.

"That cannot be," the ticket agent replied. "We have no flight to Phoenix."

"But," Mommy protested, "You must have. I have a noon flight listed on my itinerary." She handed the itinerary to the ticket agent.

The ticket agent looked at the itinerary, then looked at Mommy rather strangely. "Ma'am," he said, pointing with his finger, "You do have a noon flight, but not from here. It is from Baltimore-Washington International Airport." Oops!

That, of course, was a little better than the time Mommy arrived at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow, en route to Siberia. She looked and looked for her ticket, but it was nowhere to be found. Oops! That was a problem because she did not have very much money with her. In fact, she had just enough money to buy a one-way ticket to Siberia. She figured she could somehow get back from Krasnoyarsk, the city she was going to in Siberia, and she did.

A one-way ticket to Siberia was something that Mommy got a lot of times. Mommy really likes to travel to Siberia. She likes it so much that she will even go on a one-way ticket. Some people get sent to Siberia, or at least they did in the old days, which weren't all that long ago. That was a different kind of one-way ticket, but my Mommy is not at all worried about getting stuck there.

Once, with my sister, she went to Akademgorodok in Siberia on a one-way ticket deliberately. She figured she could get a ticket back while she was there. So, one day she and my sister took the bus from Akademgorodok to the airport. Everything worked out well, and Mommy soon had return tickets. She went outside to catch the bus back, but there was no bus stop to Akademgorodok. She asked some people about that. Yes, they told her, the bus comes here from there, but it does not return. Mommy is sure a one-way Mommy!

Another time she was at the airport in Kemerovo in Siberia with my brother. She was very proud of herself because she had gone to Kemerovo on a roundtrip ticket.

"This is the first time I've been in Siberia with a return ticket," she bragged to my brother.

He looked at the ticket and said, "Don't be so sure, Mom. This ticket is for yesterday." Poor Mommy! She just cannot get out of Siberia very easily. (She says that Siberia has always been a difficult place to leave.)

Conclusion: Before you leave home, make sure you have your ticket, but if you do not have it, go, anyway. It may be an interesting experience.


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This story is excerpted from a collection of vignettes that I helped Doah, my severely mentally challenged youngest son, to write and publish several years ago (copyright 2003). It was my attempt to help him understand literacy and the purpose of writing and reading.