Alternative title: "Self-challenge to see how efficiently I can relate a complicated, long tale" Chance of success: let's say 18%
My wife has not seen her Mom in 2+ years (she's in Portugal), and finally convinced her quite a few months ago (when COVID seemed to be dissipating all over), to come to the US for a visit over the Christmas holidays. The alternative of all 5 of us going there seemed beyond nightmarish (yes, a bit selfish there, but MUCH easier to line up testing for one person than 5) Mom finally agreed, but was hesitant primarily due to COVID, but also because she doesn't speak great English (but IMO enough to get by in an airport)
We were then informed (after tickets had been purchased) that they would come Dec 10 and leave Jan 9 (GULP!). Who's "they" I hear you ask? Well, dear reader, it was then that we were told that my wife's aunt would also be coming. Fine, but nearing
The next piece of news to hit was that they were flying into IAD (DULLES, in DC)....which is approximately (checks calculator) SEVEN HOURS away by car. WTF! And that we were supposed to just whip by and fetch them from there, stay overnight in a hotel, and pop back home next day. I don't even want to go down that mental rabbit hole of why and why not, and reasons, but these things I believe to be true:1. My MIL is quite the cheapskate
2. My brother-in-law (visiting Mom's son), who has his own travel agency, is 10x MORE of a cheapskate, and of course all the booking was done by him. He would not think twice about screwing us and his mom and aunt to make a few bucks, or get points or however the hell that works for him. Don't know, don't want to know.
3. We have a local airport approx 20m from here that has multiple daily, cheap commuter flights to IAD. At worst, CLT (Charlotte, NC), is about 1h 15m drive from my house. Note that it is an international airport, with even DIRECT flights to Portugal. I will just assume that prices were bad, or no availability, or something.
4. I was VERY VERY GOOD (for me) in terms of keeping my sassy comments to myself about the absurdity of what we were doing, while I drove us the nearly 1,000 miles round trip. VERY. GOOD, people!!! There were some slips, but I get a couple gimmies, right? I did let slip something about "hey, next time have your brother fly them into LAX! This is a fun little jaunt, but I want MOARRRR miles and uneccessary time and money wasted!!!"
To be clear, I love a road trip - mountains, beach, 3 states over, even a couple trips to DC as a family, and even once JUST to go to a concert (the wife and I). But Ubering, which is what this was? NAY, I say...NAY!!!
FF to nearing the departure date. Things are a but tense, as Intl travel COVID protocols seem to change every few days (and getting more stringent, not less of course). The in-laws are VERY nervous already. *I* and the wife are already at wits end, chewing our own arms off having houseguests for that long.
The latest protocol is: you must have negative COVID test to fly internationally, WITHIN 72 hours of departure time. Wife checked around and saw that the local airport was offering free COVID tests, and guaranteeing a 24-48 hour turnaround time (that should have been a red flag right there as NO one was offering that quick of a turnaround).
Very important side note: at this time, COVID tests are SCARCE as hell. TIME slots for those that even have tests to give are precious in many places. Many places where you normally could get a test, are no longer offering because they have none, or no staff to administer, or both. Fine. BUT, a lot of places ALSO had pre-existing "online appointment scheduling and sign up" and just left them there, active. So even for big retail chains like say CVS, you can technically (RIGHT NOW even), sign up and GET a slot confirmed for a test, only to get there at your proper time and they will say "Oh yeah, sorry, the system still lets you sign up, but we haven't had tests for DAYS".
This is not unique to CVS. Some places like urgent care/doctor's care, will charge you the $150-$350 for a rapid test appointment slot, and same thing: oops!! Our system still lets people book, but we have no slots AND/OR tests!!! This is not a regional thing, either, apparently it's happening all over the country as testing protocols tighten up, and confusion REIGNS. "Walk-up" lines at airport testing sites easily get into many many hours - can be 8 or more, waiting in line). Local pharmacies that have the tests, AND are open AND nearby an airport? Forget about it. Days. It's madness. Before I go further, if you haven't guessed by now, the moral of this particular story is DO. NOT. FLY. INTERNTIONALLY. RIGHT NOW.
Exception: if you are flying for business and the company will pay for a Dr. to make a house call for a test (usually $350+ on up), that's a thing. That's also what the wealthy are doing FWIW (That's IF you can find availability).So. Tests are administered 48 hours in advance of their flight (note also that there is a window...beyond 72 hours tested, and airlinewon't accept it), and again, they were told "we WILL get these results back to you within 24-48 hours" All the people at this site were travelers, so of course lots of people asking that question, over and over, and getting the same answer. Timing is kinda important here.
New wrinkle: original plan was that we ALL (seven) would drive them back to DC, spend some days there, before their flight left. That was pretty quickly scrapped, and the new plan was that my wife would drive them to CLT (1.5h drive), GET ON THE PLANE WITH THEM to DC, and help them to the departure gate (these are not in any way unhealthy or eveb slightly overweight people who need any kind of physical assistance, I should note). She would then turn around on a flight BACK to CLT from IAD, then drive the 1.5h back home.
Important thing adding to the already absurd stress levels: wife had a pretty important presentation/speech to deliver at the state capitol for her work, two days after the departure time. If the plan went as it should have, she would come home (tired, sure) and have the whole next work day to work on presentation, then the following day deliver it.
FRIDAY
In laws tested
SATURDAY
Chew fingernails, bc no test results
SUNDAY
intl departure of inlaws from IAD, then wife COLA>CLT>IAD>CLT>COLA
MONDAY
wife work day
TUESDAY
wife presentation day
Saturday night before flight: No results. Worry abounds. Next morning, no result (the flight that requires the test is departing at 10p that night from IAD - remember we are 480 miles away)
NEXT morning...the tension is the house is beyond palpable. Pretty sure my "humie sensitive" dog was hiding under his covers the entire morning from the literal presence of stress in the air.
Still no result. Note that they had to leave around noon to catch the short flight from CLT to IAD. Decision was made to leave, because they were PROMISED that the results would DEFINITELY be in BEFORE 48 hours.
They drive to CLT. No result STILL. Another decision has to be made: do you get on the plane to IAD, or do you wait...once you commit to IAD, if things don't work out, that's a hotel room, etc etc. OTOH, if you wait, you have to change flights from CLT to IAD (assuming they are available). Decision was made to GO (and smartly, my wife made her mom and aunt make this decision...both options were bad, and she didn't want fingers pointed at her if she chose incorrectly).
All three arrive in DC...no result still. At this point, there is a combined scramble, and assume they will not get the test on time for the 10p departure. So I help as much as I can from home, looking around for places to administer rapid tests, that A. HAVE the test, B. have a time slot that works for us available, and C. close by. God.....NIGHTMARE, let me tell ya. It's just a freaking mess for anybody (and there are LOTS) in the same boat: i.e. they got tested as they should have, and were told a timeframe, but tests did not come back in time for their flight. It was around now that we figured out that almost EVERYONE was extending out their PCR testing results, from 24-48 hours, to 72 hours MINIMUM, and wayyy more.
Summary of the next 48 hours because I can see that I already badly failed my self challenge of an efficient tale.
Had to change intl departure flight since no test result
Wife changed HER flight that day from IAD>CLT to a later one (and paid a penalty of course), so she could have time to set them up in hotel, testing appt, etc.
Wife found rapid testing slot and booked at local urgent care near IAD for FOLLOWING morning.
Wife missed that later, CHANGED flight due to getting them to hotel, etc. (there were other things that made her miss her second, rebooked flight as well, but bottom line her mom did NOT want her to leave, even though she said she had to)
Next morning, they uber from airport hotel to testing site, only for them to say "oops, sorry! yeah, you can still book appointments online for testing, but we are out, haven't had any for DAYS!"
Absolute freak out time. Note that the testing site AT IAD has as its first available time, like 2 days out, and the walkup lines are hours long, and even then you are not assured of ANYthing. Wife books ANOTHER flight from IAD to CLT for her, later that day. After literally all morning scouring the internet, making calls, etc to find a place where they can get tested, I find a clinic in downtown DC (not really close to airport) that actually answers the phone (amazing, as most places that are testing do NOT have staff for that), and lady says they have plenty of tests, and first available slot is at 3p that day. Gloryy!!!!!
In the meantime, my wife is asking me occasionally "what do I do if God forbid, the test is POSITIVE for one of them?!?" My mind could not even remotely handle that possibility, so I told her to just COMPLETELY discount that timeline else she would go mad. If that freaking monster reared it's ugly head, we would deal with it then. HAVE to assume in meantime that they are negative.
Edited in for completeion and clarity:
Both tests came back negative (thank God)
Wife made her (3rd) flight back to CLT
Wife had emailed her boss Sunday night to let her know what was happening, and boss was totally cool (she has an aged mother that lives far away, and can SOMEwhat relate), and told her if she was not able to make it, the boss could do the presentation, and it wasn't a big deal (apparently it was something boss had done before...I am fuzzy on those details).
Wife got home late, completely exhausted of course. In-laws made it back home no further problems.
So to say the least, a freaking nightmare. Some funny stories in there that I left out that my wife told me (behavior of her mom and aunt, and some of their interchanges), but this is already crazy long. Challenge? FAILED!
If you made it this far, you seriously need a hobby, or a job, or both.
Now I hear you say "fine, I DO need a job and/or hobby, Mr. Judgy-Pants Author-Man, but what about YOU?! Turn that mirror around and look at who would write such a totally unnecessary monstrosity of pidgin and prose?!"
