In which there are multiple snafus

On Tuesday we decided rather spur-of-the-moment that Jared would be heading off to California for a few days. His brother and sister-in-law are about to welcome their first baby into the world and Jared wanted to be close at hand for the blessed event. I also extracted from him a promise to do a few things on the house while he's in town.

He really wanted to drive, which I more or less vetoed. Our poor car needs a rest, and because he was planning to come back smack in the middle of the holiday weekend, airfare was very reasonable. An incremental cost of $100 to save 20 hours of driving? Sold!

So at 6:00 p.m. he hurried and booked his ticket for a flight departing at 9:30 that same night, then we ran off to see to a previously-scheduled family matter, after which we hurried home to pick up the kids, and finally dashed off to the airport. We got there with an hour to spare, helped him unload, the kids kissed him goodbye, and he was off.

Or... not off, as it turned out. I got a call when I was about 20 minutes away that I needed to come back and pick him up. Something -- and we still don't know what -- went awry with his online booking and the reservation was never made. In the meantime, the airline had substantially increased the asking price for that particular fare and let's just say it was twice what we paid for one of our cars -- literally. Since no one's life hung in the balance and we weren't in a race to win a million dollars, we decided to pass.

I called Julie on my way to pick him up. As I anticipated, she was near a computer. I gave her instructions for booking Jared on a flight out Wednesday morning, at the same price as the original fare. She painstakingly copied down the credit card info I gave her and promised to handle it. What a relief -- I was getting paranoid they would raise the price on that flight, too, before we could book it. So everything was humming along, albeit in a somewhat disjointed fashion.

I picked Jared up, asked him how his trip had been and whether he had missed us (he was gracious enough to act mildly amused) and then Julie notified me that there had been a "minor problem" with booking the alternate fare. Apparently there had been an inadvertent typo and Julie had purchased a fare for Jared "Hexbergy".

I had a split second of panic and thinking that maybe this trip simply was not meant to be. Then I seemed to vaguely recall that either I or one of my roommates had dealt with a typo on a passenger name before, so I was PRETTY sure that they would correct it without an additional charge. I had to break the news to Jared that he would have to get on the phone with airline customer service and sort it out. He did, and by 9:40 we were home for the night and had been assured that Jared, Hexbergy or otherwise, would be able to fly the following day.

Somehow Tuesday was jinxed, but we got Jared off Wednesday morning without a hitch, although that 4:30 a.m. wakeup was pretty brutal. Luckily we made arrangements so the kids didn't have to get up early. I hope Jared has half as much fun in California as he had getting himself there.