So last Thursday night, there I am at DIA waiting to pick up the CIO of my company, who is finally visiting Denver after being with the company for a year. Margie had to work that day, too, so she had the van (and was using it to transport Katherine around, too), so I had our little Saturn SC2 coupe.
Now the Saturn SC2 is a fairly small vehicle. It’s just barely large enough for me in the front seat, and the back seat — well, we refer to it as an upholstered shelf, because no sane person would actually consider sitting up there.
Still, no problem with the CIO visiting — two front seats, right? So Wednesday afternoon, despite being sick, I’d been busy cleaning out the junk, vacuuming the seats and floors, dusting the dashboards, emptying out all the crap in the tiny trunk … and the car looked really good. I’d even stopped at a car wash on Thursday morning to get the car clean outside as well.
So, there I am, waiting at the top of the escalator from the trains at DIA, trying to spot the Mike, the CIO. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting …
And there he is …
… and …
… hey, that’s Mickey, too, one of his direct reports. And …
… hey, that’s Reddy, another manager at my level.
Mike. And Mickey. And Reddy. “Surprise!”
Turns out they had all been in Calgary, but rather than Mickey and Reddy returning to Houston, Mike had invited them to join him down in Denver.
Mickey apologizes for not calling ahead to let me know.
And there’s my little Saturn SC2.
Okay, so we can super-saturate the trunk to some degree. Everyone (except the driver, me) will have something on their lap, but we can do it.
Mickey can sit in back. He’s only a bit over 5-foot.
Reddy is taller than me.
But Mike is the CIO.
Reddy takes the bullet, and folds himself in half, sideways, in the back seat. We all have managed to squeeze into the car …
Scraaaaaappppeee
There’s an intermittent scraping noise from the right rear wheel well, particularly whenever we go over a bump — when we bottom out.
And we probably have thirty-odd miles to go to the hotel.
“Let’s go ahead and rent a car,” Mike suggests.
*Sigh*
The rest of the evening (and the visit) went much better, fortunately.