I had to travel for work recently. I don’t have to do this often so it still has some novelty involved.
I have a few traditions for these trips. I try to sample as many local beers as I can. I have at least one room service dinner. And I always take good notes on where I parked my car at the airport.
I have good reason to worry about this issue. For this, like most things, I blame my brothers.
My brother Kevin took me to my first-ever concert. I will never forget that night. We drove down to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. and saw the Go-Go’s and The Police.
At the time, the Go-Go’s, the opening act, had the number one album in the country. The Police had the second-best selling record. (If you are sharing this with your kids, take a moment now to explain what an album is to them and how it used to be a really prestigious thing to be at the top of the charts.)
I loved every minute of the night. Well, every minute until we had to leave. You see, the concert followed a blizzard so it was pretty easy to forget where you parked at the Capital Centre since one mound of snow looked like another.
I can’t say we were the last ones to find our car, but we walked around for a really long time before we could head home. I never wanted to do that again.
Two years later, I went to Los Angeles for the Summer Olympics with my brothers Eddie and Dennis. We went mainly to see wrestling, but caught several other events, including a soccer game at the Rose Bowl.
The venerable stadium has a really small parking lot so not everyone can get a space. But it is surrounded by a golf course, giving everyone a place to park. Have you ever parked on a golf course in the daylight and then tried to find your car in the evening?
Yeah, this didn’t go too well. We saw a rousing game and then came out to the realization that we had no idea where we had parked. I vaguely remember a sand trap nearby and probably a green. In reality, I had no clue.
So we split up to search for the rental car. I remember wandering aimlessly through the golf course when I suddenly heard my name. I followed the sound and eventually came upon my brothers. Eddie found the car, drove around yelling until he found Dennis. Then they did the same to find me.
But I don’t have that kind of backup at the airport. I have to put a note in my phone to remind me the section where I parked my car. I also need to note the shuttle stop where I need to get off in order to find the car.
One day someone will hopefully invent something where you can pinpoint the GPS location of your car wherever you leave it. I bet that guy is wandering around a parking lot right now.