Observe and report

Dear St. Anthony,

I’d love your help in finding the parking access card, building fob and door key for my Airbnb.

Veronica the Cleaner took a pic of the bundle last Sunday to show that the guest returned it.

But when Amit checked in Friday, it was nowhere to be found.

There were no guests in between.

Unless I hosted ghosts. Or aliens.

I try to offer a five-star experience, so I set to work to try to fix the issue, even though I was in Savannah trying to spend some time with Gideon on his spring break.

The fob was the immediate concern. Well, the property manager only works Monday-Friday, and she was off Friday. NO ONE ELSE can distribute them. Fob is a no-go until Monday.

I still needed to get a new access card and key and to change the code on the lock.

I have friends in Atlanta, but that’s a big ask.

As I was flying through Atlanta on my way back to Portland, I decided to see if I could extend my layover.

The noon flight was sold out. Standby didn’t look promising. The 3 p.m. would get me there at 4, but my PDX flight left at 7.

Three hours to get out of the airport, run these errands, and get back through security?

My blood pressure is skyrocketing just thinking about it.

ANXIETY INTERLUDE.

I could either sit in the airport fretting for hours or get on the road.

I canceled my SAV-ATL flight and rented a car.

I have two sayings:

Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.

Bad decisions make good stories.

I got quite an experience and a story.

All was well until I entered Atlanta’s orbit. I am from Atlanta. I know traffic.

We always say, “Atlanta is an hour away from Atlanta.”

This was worse than almost anything I had ever seen. Add one hour to the journey.

Peachtree Street was a hot mess.

I got to the condo, grabbed the extra set of keys, and found a hardware store. That was the easy part. PASS!

Next I tried to change the code on the door lock. Somehow, I have the wrong programming code saved in my phone and no tools to take off the lock to get at the info inside. FAIL.

I went to the parking garage to get a replacement access card. The person who can do this works Monday-Friday. NO ONE ELSE can distribute them. Of course. FAIL.

So if you are keeping track, you can tell that I got virtually nothing accomplished. I wasted time, money and energy.

I am a glass-is-half-full person, so let’s look on the bright side:

• I earned Skymiles and Expedia OneKeyCash on the car rental. Clearly that’s better than keeping my actual money. 🙄
• I got to test drive a Subaru Forester. It’s THE car for folks in the Pacific Northwest. I’m trendy!
• I got to catch up with my friend Jennifer on a two-hour call. Two hours! Y’all know that’s huge for me.
• I met Amit, who is lovely, and now has a brand-new door key. Hope he gives me a good review. I did go the extra mile. 😉
• I got my heart pumping thanks to road rage. Can we call it a Traffic Tantrum? (My agita!)
• I really got to SEE Peachtree Street. Never paid much attention to most of the buildings before.
• And also Peachtree Center Avenue, onto which I detoured.

Then I had to race to the airport.

It was … not a fun trip. And not productive. But at least I tried.

Tony (if I may be so bold), it would be great if you could somehow make the wayward items turn up during Amit’s stay.

Speak to the aliens, please. Have them beam them back down.

Thank you!

Your pal,
Beth