Her husband, she explained, had been meticulously frugal in his planning and spent hours of research and investigation online over the course of several weeks ... squeezing the price, of everything from hotel accommodations to airline and theater tickets, down to the last penny to make the trip possible ... to the extent that to save on cab fare, they had to walk (carrying their luggage the whole way) about three miles from Canton to catch the train into Washington DC, where they spent the night in the airport.
Their flight to New Orleans wasn't scheduled to leave until later that night and so, to kill time, they left the airport on foot and spent the day sight-seeing in the nation's capital. Still carrying their luggage.
Around 9pm, exhausted after spending the day on their feet (and carrying their luggage), they finally returned to the airport to check in for their flight to New Orleans. Whereupon they discovered that the airline had no record of their reservations. None. Not any where. Surely the online ticketing service had made a mistake? Couldn't any of the airlines' computers find their names anywhere in its records?
Nope, sorry. Turns out that the husband, up to his earlobes in planning and minute details, had overlooked a critical detail: he forgot to buy airplane tickets to New Orleans ... which at last minute walk-up price came to a staggering $1400.
So, almost broke and penniless, and as the airport clock ticked toward 11pm, they had no choice but to catch the train back to Baltimore and then walk the three miles home from the train station (no cash left over for cab fare), still carrying their luggage and after spending a night in the DC airport ... to spend their one week vacation alone on their boat with each other.
Oh, my. I wonder how many bad words were exchanged over the next 168 hours?
Making plans can be a tricky thing ... especially when you omit the one and only means of arriving at your destination.
--
Naturally, the couple was unable to recover even a penny of the money they'd spent on the hotel, meals and theater tickets they'd purchased at a package discount.
You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
- Revelation 3:1
Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '
"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'
- Luke 12:18-20
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.
- Acts 4:12
