If You Can Make It There (And Back)

Last Saturday I was at a cocktail party wherein a lively discussion ensued regarding my upcoming trip to New York and its world class (as in third world) airport, LaGuardia. According to one gentleman, the odds were stacked against me that I would be able to find my rental car, which would be located nowhere near the airport, and that, if I did, I would nevertheless get lost in Queens all the while narrowly averting certain death. I'll admit, I got a little nervous. But then I considered these two things: (1) Nothing is worse than the traffic going to the mountains on I25 on a Saturday morning during ski season. Nothing. (2) The said gentleman was wearing a searsucker suit. I think the odds of someone wearing a searsucker suit getting out of Queens alive are probably different than someone dressed, say, normally. Well guess what. I was in my rental car and out of Queens within half an hour of getting off the plane. I have all my limbs and all my cash. The trick was that the 4 Points Sheraton in Long Island is not off of exit 48 GOOGLE it is off of exit 47. If you take exit 48 you have gone too far. (Note to the 4 Points Sheraton Plainview - I have a carpet steamer if you would like to use it.) Similarly, I made it from Long Island back to LaGuardia WITHOUT INCIDENT. Okay, so I left the parking break off when I returned the car and it rolled back onto the street, but one thing I found is that a Southern accent in New York is as good as being blonde. People just figure you not so smart and they overlook a lot. HOWEVER. First of all. Note to LaGuardia: Less mice in the Terminal B waiting area, more Starbucks. Also, if the guy whose job it is to restock the bins to get your stuff through security goes on break, maybe someone else could step in for him? Maybe. You give that some thought. Note to AirTran. Never. Again. What kind of fly by night operation is this AirTran establishment? They had to get 11 people off the plane before they would fly because we were too heavy. What? What? After an hour, and them threatening to "volunteer" people to get off the plane, 10 people took them up on their offer for a free night at a fine LaGuardia Hotel. Ten. Did you note they needed 11? Since nobody else volunteered, they said that they were going to start taking off suitcases, in no particular order, and if our suitcase wasn't at our final desination that is how we would know ours was one of the suitcases that got removed. Guess who is expecting a call at midnight to tell them whether or not their suitcase made the next flight out? Uh huh.