The flat tire on our plane

When I was about 11 years old, my family went to Hawaii. Now, the details are sketchy, but I remember that there was a delay in our return flight taking off. Halfway across the ocean, we dropped fuel and headed back to Honolulu. We stayed there for what felt like hours, then flew to LA. We missed our connecting flight there, but caught a later one to Salt Lake City, where they'd held a plane for us for 45 minutes. When we finally landed in Minneapolis five hours later than intended, you'd think we were safe. And then the plane got a flat tire. The oxygen masks came down in a few rows. We were pulled back to the gate by a luggage car.

So when I wrote this morning and said all I had to do to get our kids' birth certificates was a taxi ride across town, I should have remembered this incident.

When I got to the hospital, I was helped by a woman named Apple, who connected me with Cherry from Medical Records. Cherry came down with photocopies of Megan's birth certificate which were not as nice as the ones I already possess. I told her that we needed actual original copies and asked if she could have them generate some. After some deliberation, they decided that they could not because they didn't have the right stamp for it (the Chinese have a love affair with red stamps).

The kids and I walked a few blocks to a market where I bought a few things. Erik called there and said that it was possible we only needed the hospital to write a letter confirming that our children were in fact born there. We headed back over, only to discover at the entrance to the hospital that I had set down the birth certificate copies somewhere on our shopping trip. After a frantic run there and back, and an hour wait for a doctor to write a "medical certificate" I now have two barely legible documents stating that "Butz Ethan" and "Butz Megan" were born in their hospital.

I sincerely hope that this is the flat tire on our airplane, but I'm not holding my breath. We're not to the gate yet! :)