Monday, April 09, 2007

A funny thing happened on the way to Honduras...

The beautiful thing about family is you get to know them REALLY well over the years.
They get to learn about you and you get to learn about them....good and bad...
whether they are eccentric or funny or nuts or whatever.

I have vacationed a lot with my inlaws....most notably at Camp

I have my own eccentricities....my inlaws will tell you I am a neat freak at camp among other less favorable characteristics!!!but I am accepted....at least by some of the family members that we vacation with...others....not so much ---
~~
While in Arizona, my 86 y/o motherinlaw was with us.. she is an awesome lady. She drives herself all over the country...and does it very well...just recently she flew from Mexico to Santa Barbara, rented a car and drove to San Diego and then drove from San Diego to Tuscon, Arizona. Once she got to her destination in Arizona, one of her sons wanted her to come on vacation with them down in Honduras.

Now, for most of us, we would have been EXHAUSTED, but not her.
She jumped(ok-- fast walked) in her rent a car and drove to the airport to make the proper arrangements.....but she had forgotten that she had picked up a mattress (the size of a chaise lounge but lots thicker) in Santa Barbara that had belonged to her younger brother(who has been dead almost 10 years and had been stored in her daughter's garage all this time.) This mattress was in the back of her rental car when she got to the airport.
She was bringing it to Arizona to decide what to do with it.

(I know, I know....most of us would have pitched it.....10 years ago!)

So, here she is at the rental car place when she realizes she still has this mattress with her.
MIL: "Can you store this for me until I get back at the end of the week?"
RENTAL CAR PERSON: "Ma'am, we don't do that sort of thing."
MIL" " well, you used to."
RCP: "yes, ma'am, we used to but not now."
MIL: "Can I leave it here anyway?"
RCP: " No Ma'am, that won't be possible."
MIL: "I don't have time to take it back home. "
RCP: "Well, ma'am you can take it as luggage to your destination."
MIL: "Really?"
RCP: " Yes, it doesn't cost anything."

...so they tied it up, put a name tag on it and she took it to Honduras with her--as LUGGAGE-- with the thought that someone in Honduras would want it.

If I tell you she came home to AZ with it would you be surprised?

Apparently, the people of Honduras know a bad deal when they see one!!

3 comments:

Mamaw said...

UNBELIEVABLE!!

I do admire her stamina. I'm a few years younger than she, and there's no way I could, or would want to do that trip without the mattress!!

Love it!
Mom

MotherOf3Guys said...

Didn't they charge her extra for "large baggage"? She beats even dad when it comes to "Free Stuff."!! Didn't think anyone would take his place on that list. We need to ask Andy how many mattresses he has loaded on his airplanes.

Liz said...

Neva, this is like a movie script! Most of the elderly folks out here in Arizona are referred to as "Snowbirds" and their driving is (to be polite) unreliable. Glad you liked my blog on the The Secret. As I said there was a lot bad in the book, but also some good things. The bad was very bad, though. Yes, it's amazing what folks'll fall for.