So I've heard it said that a little knowledge goes a long way, but they never told me that sometimes you have to go a long way for a little knowledge.
Anyway, here is the little knowledge that I learned while traveling a long, long way to Cleveland this weekend for my nephew's wedding:
- If - because of your husband's newly-enforced budgetary restrictions - you make a "reservation" for your college-aged daughter with a cheap airport shuttle, please understand that the reservation is not confirmed unless/until your daughter receives an actual confirmation email. The email informing you that the reservation has been canceled will arrive two days after her flight.
- Last-minute-one-way cab fare from the University of Delaware to BWI will cost an average college-aged daughter somewhere in the vicinity of $150. It will, however, cost your daughter $200.
- Having to infuse a college-aged daughter's account with emergency transportation funds will cause a busy mother to discover that the same daughter has recently overdrawn her account. She will also discover that another daughter - who is scheduled to travel the next day - has a grand total of $25 in her account.
- A quick perusal of her own bank account will cause that same mother to come to the conclusion that it is absolutely imperative that she extract her ATM card from a daughter whose name rhymes with Fonzi because of unauthorized withdrawals which clearly do not qualify as "necessary".
- Ditto for the mother's iTunes account.
- Even after all of these horrendous discoveries, it is best to continue with the mother's plan for getting a pre-wedding mani-pedi and to also agree with salon employee about needing additional eyebrow waxing. . .to look beautiful for nephew's wedding. . .
- It is best to break all-of-the-above to Drip Dry gently . . . or perhaps not at all.
- A mother who has never set foot in Dulles airport can successfully talk a second, panicked college-aged daughter through a change of planes. . . once she discovers her daughter's flight has arrived at gate A-4 and her connecting flight departs from the neighboring gate - A-5.
- An 82-year-old mother in the backseat of a car complains far less than any number of daughters in the air.
- One has a significantly better chance of talking to one's dog on the PetSmart Bone Booth than of reaching her 86-year-old father who has been left in respite care with nothing but a cell phone for his means of communication. (The dog, you see, does not feel the need to turn the phone "off" when finished with a phone call. . . .
- One should never wear new shoes to a nephew's wedding . . .unless, of course, you are that guest on the dance floor in a wheelchair.
- One of the mysteries of the universe centers around the fact that one can dance at a nephew's wedding for five hours straight - but somehow the walk from the hotel elevator to her room will cause the little piggies who ate roast beef to wish they were the little piggies who had stayed home.
- If Ohio is The Buckeye State and a Buckeye is nothing more than a stinky tree, Ohio could just as easily be designated The Pepe le Pew state.
- The Keystone State is exactly 320 miles from end to end and is best driven through by texting anyone who ever had the misfortune of giving you their cell phone number.
- If Drip Dry weren't so darned cheap, you - like your daughters - would have a smart phone so that a multitude of people could be simultaneously tweeted to the hilarity that is you while on an eight hour ride home.
Wait! This post wasn't all about me? Was I supposed to say something about the wedding? Well it was beautiful. . . just beautiful . . .
