fry and fly...florida disaster, part II

well, so now i am on a different plane headed for charlotte, but i am late now,and it makes it almost impossible for me to make my 8 a.m. connection to fort lauderdale...problem here because bebo and i had decided i should just give him the keys to my car in the airport vs. leaving the keys in the car under the mat. the way this was working was that bebo drove to florida with austin and the hackers (dave, the coach of austin's team, and andrew, his son and austin's best friend) and he would fly home, leaving the car for me to drive back. i would leave my car in the richmond parking lot and he would use my car while i was in florida and i would fly into ft. lauderdale and then drive home when the tourney was over. simple plan...unless you don't meet in the airport...thus ensued a flurry of phone calls back and forth trying to see if we could meet at all. i got to charlotte, and then had to be told that although i was there before the plane took off (10 minutes) i was not going to be allowed to take it. this necessitated getting a new flight, which they had already done, but it would not be leaving charlotte until 1:10 in the afternoon (remember, it is only 8am when this is happening) and not arriving in ft. lauderdale until after 3pm. not satisfactory for me. so i am calling everyone (and getting no one) seeing if i can find someone who can get the spare set of keys out of the house and over to the airport. my neighbor finally was able to do this (bebo's plane didn't get in until after 2pm, so amy could manage it.) i am in charlotte trying to get another flight earlier, and bebo is leaving the ballfield and heading for the ft. lauderdale airport. he had stayed as long as he could to watch austin play, but had to leave and as soon as he left, they called him and said....AUSTIN HAD BEEN RUN INTO ON FIRST BASE AND HIS HAND WAS BROKEN....so his dad is on the way to the airport, his mother is stuck in charlotte on her way to the ft. lauderdale airport, and he has no one there. they take him to the trainer of the tournament who lets the paramedics look at it, and once they do that, they have to now take him to the emergency room,which they do,WITHOUT ANYONE KNOWING ABOUT IT. so here austin goes in the ambulance without anyone with him. they had to take him because neither bebo or i were there to sign off saying they didn't have to take him. some sort of rule. anyway, a mother that i don't know at all who was there (new kid on the team) did follow to the emergency room once they figured out where he was, and now i am in the airport in charlotte getting this info, but unable to contact austin b/c he doesn't have his cell phone on him and because carol's doesn't work in the emergency room...bebo is trying to decide what to do, but opts to come home as the airline won't change his reservation unless he pays $400, so austin sort of sticks it out, gets his hand x-rayed and then goes back to the ballfield about the time my plane lands in ft. lauderdale (i got a 10 a.m. flight out, but was still an hour away from him.) the 2 hours are spent with me either in the air trying to get a cell phone call out, or trying to field voicemail messages. austin did get one call through to me when they were trying to check him in, but other than that, i just had to wait until i got on the ground. of course, bebo had parked in the east jesus parking lot, which required a shuttle to get to, plus i get on the shuttle, put on my luggage, then when i go to get off, it isn't there...i am thinking "who in god's name has taken my suitcase?" but it turned out the driver had thrown it on the ground. now i get to negotiate the parking deck to find bebo's car and then get out of there...i call austin, and he is on happy pills and on his way back to the game to see what was going on, so i got his permission to eat in ft. lauderdale (had not since the night before) and i went to DIGGITY DOGS, which is a shack near the airport that sells authentic chicago hot dogs! got myself a dog and then they sold me the actual hotdogs, buns, peppers, relish and celery salt from chicago (they were frozen) and off i went to jupiter! i made the dogs for dinner that night. the hackers had never had them before and we all enjoyed them! that was the only thing good about that day...well, other than the plane didn't crash...