Locked in the airport carpark!
I drove to the airport to pick up my granddaughter from her holiday with her grandmother an hour's flight away in Sydney. Her flight was due in at 11.30, but the airline re scheduled it a quarter hour later, then it was delayed by bad weather for another 15 minutes.
As my granddaughter is a minor, I need to go into the airport arrival gate, show my I.D and sign her off the flight and into my care.
I had to go through security to get in to the arrival gate, so they checked to see if I had any guns or knives on me and eventually let me through. After i discovered her flight was delayed I decided to buy a coffee. No money, and nobody in the terminal took a card for under 10 bucks and there was no ATM inside the terminal so I was stuck without my coffee.
She is supposed to come off the plane last with an escort.
As it turned out there was no need to show my ID as she simply walked off the plane on her own and out into the terminal with no security check at all. She is only fourteen, so I will ensure they follow procedure next time.
Then off to get the car.
Since we were at the airport last time, they have locked up the luggage trolleys and you need $4 to unlock them, so we had to carry the luggage by hand.
Then we can't find the car in the maze of angled car parks, so I wonder around for another 15 minutes until I backtrack and find it.
In the car at last I head for the exit with my little parking card in hand. I drive right through to the automatic gate and put my ticket in. It tells me I owe $20, but the gate doesn't come up. After trying several times I realise it is not going to raise the barrier until I part with the $20!
In the meantime a bunch of cars are building up behind me. I examine the ticket machine and see a small button with "help" written on it. After what seems like an eternity A voice asks me how it can help me.
He askes "Do you have a credit card?" So I say yes and he tells me there is a slot in the machine to feed my card in. I find the slot, insert my card and it won't accept it.
I then try my debit card which is supposedly in need of a security pin to pay out, and it gobbled up the $20 no problem. The gate opened and we escaped much to the pleasure of all the cars stuck behind me.
OK I forgot to take money with me, but if I did not have a card with me as well I would still be at the bloody airport!
I may have to buy my own plane... it's gotta be easier than this!
"Age is a b!tch innit
Some years ago when I was still in marriage hell - I had a stressful week then had to fly to Nigeria to look at a contract I did not really want in a country I did not want to work in (but the money was high).
I duly parked in long stay, returned after 10 stressfull days, and the ticket machine took my cash and ate my ticket with the carefully drawn little map of where I left my car and gave me a new 'paid' ticket.
Confident I knew where it was, I headed for the car park at 7 am on a frosty morning after the humid heat of the Niger delta.
No car. I checked double carefully tehn walked all around the compund, into the adjoining compounds just in case - no car. I eventually called the guard house and they confirmed that I was in exactly the right spot for entry on the day etc and offered to come and help - I decided to give it one more try as I could not imagine my BMW 735 with super locks had been stolen from the tight security of the airport compound.
Sitting on the bonnet of the car, in the spot where my car should be, I glanced down and recognised the number plate of my wife's car - that I had taken to the airport so that she could use mine to travel with the kids while I was away !!!!- a great little slice of real life!
