Running

Filipino time for me is on-time time but I stretched it a bit too much to on-the-dot time, and today we are flying to Orlando, Florida armed with the same on-the-dot-time-state-of-mind.

From San Francisco we drove to Salinas and hurriedly packed our things going straight to the airport in San Jose to the long-term parking.  Buses go around these huge parking areas to pick up passengers going towards departure.  The first bus that came by was devoid of passengers and the bus driver told us to run towards another bus that’s already half-full.  The bus he was pointing at was several blocks away, and it was already cornering towards the lane going out of long term parking.  We figured, if we run fast enough we can still catch it.  So, we ran as fast we could as if our lives depended upon it.

We caught the bus, and our breath.  After a minute or so, instead of going to the airport’s departure area, the bus moved out of the airport towards a busy highway.  We alighted and our feet became as light as feather as we ran towards the first bus we approached.  Recognizing his mistake, the driver scratched his head and nod at us.  We finally reached departure and we were able to check in on time with the help of a Filipino attendant. 

In Dallas, Texas where we had a stopover, we succumbed to hunger and we lazily ate lunch.  Suddenly, the intercom blared our names being the last passengers to board.  We ran again towards the boarding gate to a half smiling ground crew who looked as if he is ready to chew us had we been a minute more late.