Coffeehouse Chronicles: Planes, Cousins, and Questionable Decisions
- Marc & Bridget Saunders
- Jul 11
- 8 min read
What's up, my peeps? Got yer cup?
The Cabo adventure is officially over. The HB and I arrived back at LAX after a fantastic week in paradise to find Cmdr. McCroc and Mrs. Scrubbles waiting for us.
The flight home was uneventful.
Unfortunately, what happened after we landed was not.
As we descended into LAX, I looked down at the 105 and immediately remembered something important.
It was Wednesday.
At rush hour.
And Cmdr. McCroc was driving the Coffeehouse Limo to pick us up.
I sent a text.
"Hey Bruh, we landed. We're through customs. Headed to baggage claim."
A few moments later he replied: "No problem. Be there in 50 minutes."
Now, if you've ever spent any time in Los Angeles traffic, you know that 50 minutes is either wildly optimistic or wildly pessimistic. There is no middle ground.
The HB and I settled in for the wait. Two minutes later, McCroc was standing in front of us. Apparently even he didn't know how he'd gotten there. According to McCroc’s GPS, he was still twenty-two minutes away from Terminal 6 when he arrived at the airport. I've decided not to question it. Some mysteries are best left unsolved. We made it home.
But that wasn't the biggest surprise. No, they brought a special guest star.
Pea.
Pea Dog.
The Little Pea Meister himself.
Our seven-year-old nephew from Atlanta was in town. Now we haven't seen Pea in a couple of years, so it was great seeing him again. The nice thing about kids is they somehow manage to get bigger while you're not looking. Every time I see him I feel like somebody secretly upgraded him with a software update.
We hung out with Cmdr. McCroc, Mrs. Scrubbles, and the Pea for a bit.
Watched the Dodgers.
Life was good.
Then I remembered something.
I had another flight that I had to get on.
The next morning.
At dawn. Or what some people call dawn. Personally, I call 2:45 a.m. "still yesterday."
While everyone else was winding down from Cabo, I was unpacking my carry-on only to repack my carry-on. It felt like luggage performance art.
Fortunately the Dodgers won, which improved morale considerably.
A few hours later my alarm went off.
At 2:45. AM.
In the context of time, "AM" stands for ante meridiem, which is Latin for "before midday."
Two forty-five in the morning is a time generally reserved for bakers, insomniacs, and people making bad decisions.
I was headed to Ontario Airport. The HB wasn't even traveling with me, yet somehow she remained anxious about me missing the flight. That's love right there. The kind where your spouse worries enough for both of you.
I arrived at ONT as scheduled. There was just one problem. TSA wasn't open.
There I was.
Ready.
Prepared.
Responsible.
And the airport wasn't even awake yet.
-----
Eventually I made my way through security and settled at the gate. While waiting to board, I had a startling realization.
I thought I was going to Phoenix.
Turns out I wasn't.
I discovered this when I heard an announcement for the Phoenix flight departing from another gate.
"That's odd," I thought. Then I checked my boarding pass.
Denver.
I was going to Denver.
The good news is that I figured this out before getting on the wrong airplane. So we're calling that a win.
I landed in Denver at Gate C68. My connection was departing from Gate C29. According to Life360, this required approximately a mile and a half of jogging through the airport like I was starring in a car rental comercial.
Now I've seen nature documentaries showing wildebeests crossing the Serengeti.
My journey through Denver International was remarkably similar.
Thankfully there were moving walkways. Three of them. Without those moving walkways, I might still be there.
I reached Gate C29 with twenty minutes to spare.
Victory.
I rewarded myself with a six-dollar bottle of water. I sat down. Took a breath, and I relaxed for approximately six minutes. Then they called my boarding group.
I jumped up. Got my ticket scanned. And walked down the jetway.
Then suddenly remembered the six-dollar water was still sitting back at my seat. I hope whoever found it appreciated my contribution to airport hydration.
Eventually I landed in St. Louis and got picked up by my cousin. Which got me thinking:
How is it that I have to travel 2,500 miles to see a cousin I haven't seen in two years when he lives thirty miles from me back home?
I don't know. Maybe that's just life. Two families.
He's got two kids. We have nine grandchildren.
We both have busy schedules. Jobs. Responsibilities. The whole nine.
But the funny thing is that after all those miles, everything felt exactly the same.
We visited.
Shared stories.
Saw my favorite aunt.
Caught up with the cousins. Met up with family I hadn't seen in far too long. And before I knew it, what started as a quick trip had turned into a little family reunion.
Not exactly what I planned when I left Cabo.
But sometimes the best parts of a trip are the unexpected ones.
Even if they involve four airports, two boarding passes, one forgotten bottle of water, and absolutely no idea where you're flying until after you reach the gate.
The next day turned out to be a good one.
The reason for the trip, of course, was to celebrate the life of my Uncle Lawrence, my dad's younger brother.
It's hard to believe, but it had been many years since all the cousins had been together in one place. That's what happens when everybody grows up, has kids, and then those kids have kids. Before you know it, family reunions become weddings and funerals.
That's a shame, too.
Because once we all got together, it felt like no time had passed.
One of the great things about the trip was getting to see cousins I don't get to see nearly often enough. Some are my dad's cousins, which makes them my cousins too, even if the exact math requires a flow chart and a genealogist.
Folks like Wilma and Allison, who I mostly keep up with on Facebook these days because life has a way of scattering people across cities and states while somehow keeping them connected through pictures of grandkids and vacation posts.
Then there were my cousins' kids, who have committed the rude offense of growing all the way up. Lawren, Joey, and Saunders were there. Yes, Saunders is his first name. And yes, every person who meets him comments on it. If your name is Saunders, you don't really need an introduction. His name itself starts the conversation at our family gatherings.
What really catches you off guard is realizing some of these kids now have kids of their own. Somewhere along the way I stopped being one of the younger cousins and became one of the older cousins. Nobody asked my permission for this transition.
I even met some of my cousin's cousins. Now for those trying to sort that one out, those would be relatives from Brian's mom's side of the family. Family trees get complicated after enough branches. At some point you're just introducing people by saying, "We're related somehow," and everyone nods and accepts it without further questions.
What struck me throughout the day was just how many stories revolved around Uncle Lawrence.
Apparently growing up in St. Louis was very different than growing up on the West Coast.
My sister, Piggy, and I didn't get to participate in a lot of the adventures that Brian, Kim, Sherri, and Jay experienced.
After hearing the stories, I'm not entirely sure whether to be disappointed or grateful.
One story involved what is now commonly referred to as **The Laundry Chute Incident.**
The cousins were gathered at the house.
The adults noticed the usual signs of children at play.
Running.
Yelling.
Running again.
More yelling.
Then suddenly...
Silence.
Now every parent knows that silence is never good.
Silence means someone is either being creative or unconscious.
My Uncle Lawrence went looking.
Unknown to the adults, Brian had developed a plan.
And like many plans developed by young boys, it sounded completely reasonable right up until the point where somebody got hurt.
Apparently Brian had spent some time gathering laundry and making a giant pile in the basement beneath the laundry chute.
His brilliant idea?
Talk Sherri into climbing into the laundry chute and dropping onto the pile below.
Shockingly enough, she agreed.
Even more shockingly, she volunteered to go first.
By the time Uncle Lawrence opened the little laundry chute door, he discovered Sherri hanging inside by her fingertips.
The sudden appearance of an adult startled her.
She shrieked.
She let go.
And before anyone could stop her:
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Down the chute she went, pinballing off the aluminum sides all the way to the basement.
Meanwhile Brian and Jay looked up from below just in time to see...
THWOOP!
Out popped Sherri.
Mission accomplished.
Remarkably, after a quick trip to the ER she escaped serious injury.
Which somehow convinced the cousins that the plan had been a success.
But the stories didn't stop there.
There was also **The Physics Experiment.**
As with many great scientific studies, this one took place in the basement.
And as with many family stories, it involved Brian.
The game was simple.
Jump from a barstool to a couch.
If successful, move the stool back farther.
Repeat.
Basically Olympic long jump meets poor decision-making.
On about the fifth or sixth round, Jay decided he would outdo Brian.
Unfortunately, Jay's understanding of momentum and rotational mechanics was still developing.
He launched.
The stool rotated.
One foot got hung up.
His momentum stopped.
The rest of him did not.
He proceeded to perform what could best be described as a head-first guided missile strike directly into the tile floor.
Silence.
Every cousin immediately froze.
Jay was seeing stars.
Brian was asking if he was okay.
Everyone else was trying to determine if anyone had actually witnessed the event.
According to Brian, there may have even been a temporary flat spot on Jay's forehead.
Jay insisted he was fine.
Which, of course, is exactly what a concussed six-year-old says.
The cousins wisely decided to find quieter activities for the remainder of the afternoon.
The cover-up might have worked too.
Except on the ride home Aunt Gwen noticed Jay wasn't acting like Jay.
Turns out children who take a barstool-assisted launch directly into a tile floor are sometimes a little groggy afterward.
Eventually Uncle Lawrence conducted an investigation.
Brian initially maintained his innocence.
Nothing happened.
Nobody got hurt.
Everything was fine.
After what I'm imagining was a level of questioning normally reserved for federal investigations, Brian finally confessed.
The family concluded that Jay had probably suffered a concussion.
And because this was the 1970s, they did what apparently passed for medical protocol at the time.
They put him to bed.
No observation period.
No concussion specialist.
No NFL protocol.
Just a collective family shrug and, "Let's let him sleep it off."
Looking back, I couldn't help noticing a pattern.
The common ingredients in nearly every story were:
1. The basement.
2. Brian.
3. A terrible idea.
And yet somehow all of us made it into our sixties.
I honestly don't know how.
Maybe that's the real miracle.
Still, hearing those stories reminded me how fortunate I am.
We may not get together often enough.
Life may scatter us all over the country.
But when we do get together, it's like picking up a conversation that started fifty years ago.
I already know one thing.
I'm looking forward to the next reunion.
Although I'm also pretty sure that if Brian suggests any activities, I'll be declining.
Immediately.
Until next time, Chroniclers...
You know what to do.
Drink 'em if you got 'em.
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