Plane Yogurt

I just completed my first weekend as a bachelor in many years and boy was I wild.

Saturday, I spent the day looking at one possible area where my family may live.

Sunday, I spent the day looking at another possible area where my family may live.

Is that wild or what?

Ok, I did have a three-flavor, three-topping frozen yogurt for dinner on Sunday.

Does that count?

I actually really enjoy the process of walking through home after home, after home, after home, in search of the perfect palace.

I mean place.  (Damn keyboard.)

Whether you are renting or buying or leasing or leasing to buy or whatever, there are about nine million options out there.

It really doesn’t matter what city you are in.

I’ve always found that the quantity is not the hard part.

The quality is another story.

It's funny what some people find attractive.   

Like the bright teal colored carpet I saw strewn all over a house today.

Or the... hey whatever works for you. 

The two locations I visited were in completely opposite directions, both about the same exact distance from where I am working.

My gut tells me the Saturday destination is the favorite.

And as Al Roker would have it, Saturday was an absolutely beautiful summer day.

While Sunday was humid beyond belief with rain storms so strong you would’ve thought they were filming an Eddie Rabbitt music video.

Now I don’t know if it was symbolic or significant, but I wonder if mother nature was trying to tell me something.

Of course, none of this is going to matter until my wife and kids see the different areas, which won’t happen for a couple of months.

But the good news, it will happen.

Moments ago, I just booked their trip for their first visit to their new home.

Wherever that may be.

None of the kids have been to this part of the country, so there will be plenty of build up.

Kinda like Avatar 2.

Even though they are not coming for like two months, I wanted to book the plane tickets now to get the best deal.

It’s the Jewish way.

I tried expedia, travelocity, orbitz, kayak, ratemymullet, any place I could to get the job done.

And every single site had the same exact flights at the same exact price.

Makes no sense.

The good news is the flights were really, well sorta, cheap, like $300 for a round-trip ticket.

The bad news is I'm buying four tickets.

$300 x 4, carry the one, = $1200.

Wow!  Do you know how many frozen yogurts I could buy for $1200?

Do I want to see my family?  Of course.

Are they worth $1200?

OBJECTION.   

The witness doesn’t need to answer that.

Once I stopped hyperventilating, I realized that I might be able to go into my bag of tricks and use some miles to get this puppy done.

So I called one airline and after working my way through the automated hell, I got a human.

They told me for something like 50,000 miles per person, they would be able to put my family on an itinerary that would have more stops than an LA freeway.

Not to mention the 200,000 miles that I don’t have.

Fortunately I had traveled quite a bit in a previous job and I was able to test the waters of another airline.

I had built up something like 106,832 miles.  

But who’s counting.

So I called the 800 number -- I don’t really trust the internet -- and within minutes Nicole answered.

I know her name is Nicole, because I asked.

54 minutes, 100,000 miles and $40 later, we had our tickets.   All four of them.

The trip still involves one stop, but the bottom line is I will get to see my family again.

Even if only for a week.

And you can’t put a price tag on that.

As long as it’s less than $1200.