Padre and Holiday/Work Travel

Any time Padre has a job- on his job- he calls it "a case of trouble".


If I text him or call him to ask where he's at, he might reply:

 "Well, I got a 'case of trouble' over at Idahoan (it's a diff. name now but they make dehydrated potatoes.)

OR

 "There's a "case of trouble" over in Cheyenne that they've got me on." Either way, it takes him to distant places at times. He drives to these locations in his work car that is basically set up how his office, bedroom, and life are set up- exactly how he likes it.

Sometimes these cases of trouble take him really far away. Those  long hard trips, driving in his work vehicle, that has all of his tools to fix cases of trouble, that deal with phones and whatever other trouble that comes with how people and companies comunicate, can be really hard on him.

The fact he  is in this field and excels is almost ironic to me because, I swear, he and I can't communicate. Somehow things get lost in translation.

Recently, Padre returned from Denver and was telling us  his adventrues driving clear to the state of Colorado with all his specifically Padre packed items for a trip. (i.e. his stuff.)

After he recounted a scammer calling his motel room and telling him that the hotel computers went down and all of the information was lost and would therefore need his credit card information again- my brother asked some questions and made some observations.

First of all, to ease your mind readers, Padre caught on real quick to the scam; told them he never gave his credit card info over the phone and he'd come down to the desk. Which he did. They informed him that it was what he already knew- a Scam Call. Probably the desk person's friend calling from the next room- but the scam was alleviated and Little Brother rightly assessed:

"You have to get up Pretty Early in the morning to pull one over on this guy."
More travails followed concerning the trip and the breakfast conversation went like this:


Son: "Wouldn't the company fly you?".

Padre: "Yes."

Son: "Why didn't you just have them fly you?"

Padre: "Because then I have to check in, and then I have to have my tools in the belly of the plane and then they might lose them. And THEN what if there is a tool I needed that I didn't ship.

Me: Thinking to myself I knew the answer was that he wanted ALL his stuff right with him. And there is NO way he's getting that into a carry on. Heck, just some of his stuff is pulled to his work car in a small luggage bag that many could mistake him for the pilot. So that right there would put a lot of folks at risk.


Brother: "Is that really why you don't want to fly?" he knows the reason, too. He just wants Padre to admit the truth.

Padre, wincing and throwing his head back as if he'd heard the stock market has plummeted and he's lost his whole life's savings, pention plan and the house finally wails:

"I just want my mug!"

So we were all wrong. Well, to a degree. Because, as you know Reader, Padre has to have his mug.

Son, Me: We sat in silence for a brief moment to Reflect on whether or not mugs are even allowed as a carry on.

 I thought  back on all of my airplane rides and I can't recall seeing anyone drinking from a mug.
Can you?


Grandson: uncontrollable laughter.


*For new readers, Padre's mug is a very large, yellow mug that he either puts ice or Coca`-Cola into and perfects the ice/liquid ratio so that it tastes better than any drink you could possibly create. It could quite easily carry a plethora of tools that a terrorist could use, so I can see that it would not be advisable for airlines to allow Padre sized mugs aboard planes. And even if you weren't packing a bomb in the mug, who carries a huge mug onto a plane? It seems somehow out of place.


In Padre's defense, it would be unnerving to have all the tools you need for a Case of Trouble to the job; have it possibly get lost, get through busy airports, and not being next to his stuff would bring on a lot of anxiety. Not worth it.