A Hero? I Think Not; Just a Victim of Circumstance

Me mugging it up with the 2018 Toyota Camry in Portland.

I'm not the kind of guy who is comfortable with uber-long absences from home. I define uber-long as anything over 9 or 10 days – and even that's pushing it. Three days, five days or even seven days are well within my comfort zone. Even when relaxing on vacation, anything past seven days can bump up my levels of angst and stress.

I am currently on day 13 of a 15-day sentence away from home. I am bonkers! How did such a thing happen? you may ask. Aren't you master of your fate, captain of your ship, king of your castle? you might add. Why, yes I am, sort of, to a point. I certainly don't have a significant other to whom I answer or feel the need to discuss plans. That in and of itself makes life less stressful and puts me in a better position not to have to spend more time away from home than I prefer. But, at times, I can screw things up all on my own as they just spiral out of my control.

A number of forces conspired to put me in this position. I am basically a victim of circumstance. At the heart of it, though, I am simply too loving, loyal and reliable for my own good. There, I've finally admitted it.

Here's how it went down....

I visit my sister and her family in New Mexico twice a year: Christmas and again sometime in the summer. Nearly a 1,600-mile trek, I am no longer keen to drive it, take the bus, train nor hoof it. That leaves flying.

Because I must bear the burden of the ticket price (very rare for me), I always book early to minimize the cost whether in Sky Miles (Delta speak for frequent-flier miles) or dollars. This means booking not just weeks, but sometimes several months in advance. I book the trip for 10 days just in case a carmaker media event crops up during my stay that a client asks me to attend. I can zip away for three days in the middle of my New Mexico stay and still have seven days to spend with family. Yes, I'm a peach.

My Goddaughter and I celebrating her Masters Degree at a nineties theme party in Albuquerque.

I booked my summer visit from June 9 through June 19. A few weeks after booking this trip, Toyota sent out invitations to its 2018 Camry media launch. Although it offered multiple waves, I chose the first wave, which meant flying to Portland, Ore on June 5 with a return home on June 7.

No problemo, right? I get home the afternoon of June 7, have that night, as well as the night of June 8 at home before heading to New Mexico on Friday, June 9.

Three weeks later, a client forwards an invite to me, requesting I attend. It's for the 3-day Audi A5/S5 Sportback media launch in Seattle beginning June 7. Freelancing is never saying, no. Not ever. If ever offered an assignment as I lie gasping for air, clutching my chest on my deathbed, I will screw up the last dregs of my strength to squeak out a raspy, HELL YES! Get it? I never say, no.

That's not to say I've never turned down such an assignment. I am this client's last-ditch go-to for carmaker events. Think of it as if I was part of some sort of homeland defense unit. This client wouldn't call me up until the enemy was storming the Magic Kingdom in Disney World. I'm that far down the pecking order. Consequently, often I don't receive these invitations until two or three weeks before the event. So, there have been a couple of times I've had to turn down the assignment simply because I was already booked on conflicting car events.

I immediately agreed to attend the Audi event and then had to try to figure out how I would overcome the logistics. Never, ever say, no.

What I wound up doing was blowing off my return flights from Portland to Greenville, and then flying on Wednesday the 7^th from Portland to Seattle. Friday the 9^th was to be the travel day home from Seattle. Luckily, I always book my longer flights out of Atlanta, rather than Greenville/Spartanburg. I can drop off whatever test car I have at the airport, picking up a replacement on my return. Unfortunately, though, my flight out of Atlanta to New Mexico was at 11 a.m. on that Friday.

My only choice was to hop the red-eye from Seattle to Atlanta on Thursday night. Delta checked my bags all the way to New Mexico and, once landed, I had three hours to make that flight. The one big fly in the ointment, however, was that my flight to Portland at the beginning of this mess was out of Greenville/Spartanburg, but my flight back from New Mexico at trip's end terminated in Atlanta.

I had to work out with the vendor supplying me with test cars to pick up one car in Greenville and drop off my replacement car at the Atlanta airport two weeks later. Geesh.

There you have it: my loyalty to my client, love for my family and reliability in my work ethic drove me to a 15-day absence. I'm no hero; just a victim of circumstance.