Bowling for Grandmas

My first trip abroad – I was so excited because now I was going to be a world traveler. I was accompanying Robbie on a business trip and we were going to not one, not two, but three different countries! First stop was Moscow, Russia, then on to enjoy Gardone Riviera in Italy, and finally a few days in London, England. (Here's the intro page I created for my scrapbook.)

After a ten hour flight from Dallas to London, we landed at Gatwick Airport. We stood in line for almost two hours to get through customs. Then we had an hour long bus drive to London Heathrow Airport. I get a little carsick sometimes, but riding on a bus on the “wrong” side of the road and looking down at the car next to us with no driver in the “driver’s” seat was like getting car sick in the Twilight Zone. Not to mention that there are no stop signs, just those round abouts everywhere! It was so bad that I pulled a plastic bag out of my laptop case just in case . . . that really made Robbie nervous.  Luckily, we arrived at our destination without me having to use the bag! We retrieved our luggage and headed into the airport.

We couldn’t find the elevator at London Heathrow Airport and decided to take the escalator down to the concourse. We had done this before and of course now I was a world traveler. We were both pulling two suitcases on wheels with a laptop bag on top of one. I pushed my smaller suitcase onto the escalator, stepped onto the next step, and turned to pull the big suitcase onto the step behind me . . . while at the same time letting go of my smaller suitcase. I turned around just in time to see it tumbling down the escalator toward an elderly lady (the only other person on the escalator).

I yelled out “Ma’am, Ma’am” and she turned around in time to stop the suitcase and rode off the bottom of the escalator backwards, falling down hard, legs in the air, arms flaying about! (Now I wasn’t feeling so good about being a world traveler, it was more like a country-comes-to-the-city show.) I couldn’t get down the escalator to help her as I was still holding on to the big suitcase – the escalator seemed to be going in slow motion and I just kept saying "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry" in my nice Texas accent.

She was up and said she was OK by the time we arrived at the bottom. I apologized several times and gave her a hug. She was very gracious about the incident. I felt absolutely terrible and was practically in tears as we started pulling our luggage down the hallway to our terminal. (I wonder if God was trying to teach me a little humility here since I was a little arrogant about being a world traveler.) 

Robbie however was able to see the humor in the incident. He said, “Wow, a strike on your first try! It’s a new game – bowling for Grandmas.” Well, I guess it would have been a Grandmum, right? (God does have a sense of humor after all.)

This post was inspired by Sian's Storytelling Sunday, a fun monthly event where bloggers around the world share a tale or two.