One half-hour had passed. I approached him and in an unrushed fashion, that would be deemed as non-offending, I attempted to talk about things. A hurricane was approaching New York City, I stated. I don't know what to do. I know that we have to leave the city. I don't know what steps to take after that. I believe we can figure it out when we get to New Orleans. We just had to get on that plane and go. After some thought, acceptance of the situation was reached. My mother brought Beejing over to a trusted neighbor, my father helped me load up the car, and we began to speed toward the airport.
The highways were not as empty as I expected during this time of the morning. Rainfall gathered in pools on the side of the road and driving into them at excessive speeds would enable us to hydroplane for a second or two-enough to cause a slight commotion in the car, especially if we neared the guardrails. Yet, I maintained the excessive speed of travel. We seldom used the center lane, which was the safest to venture in, but it was often filled with other cars traveling at far too slow safe speeds, uncommon to others like us who were in urgent need to get to the airport.
We finally reached the airport at 6:30 AM. Even though the puzzle was far from solved, a certain peace had been restored, and I felt like my mother, father, and I were once again, working together as a team. Alike a beacon in a fog, maybe that is all that really mattered, for ninety percent of the unneeded commotion had been simmered.
Things seemed more optimistic. I stood in the check-in line and miraculously found that the staff was much more helpful in person. I was able to speak to one of the managers and discovered that although the 6:50 Flight was delayed for a few hours, she gave us the beneficial options of either the 8:05 or a 10:48 AM Flights, enabling us to venture to the bank and retrieve the gift jewelry, therefore calming my mother's concerns. Additionally, due to circumstances, she was going to waive the $1500 fee to update my itinerary.
We checked in our luggage and headed back to the car. The next couple of hours were blurry to me due to the sudden drop of stress levels while the intensity of sleeplessness set in.
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