Kultral Notes

If you are stoopid enough to try to run by a place on the day of the Baltimore Marathon just before you gotta catch a plane, forget about it, especially if you're not sure, and the street you are looking for is something -Mont, and it's actually in the alley, so getting out wouldn't have been any problem except the only way the GPS and signs and experience and inner gyroscope still ended up tangled going either this way or that standing still. So this intrepid reporter gave 20 bucks to a cab driver he let in line and asked him to lead him out to I-95. At first, it looked like a possible waste of money, but none were worried with another car pulled between us. But it was money well spent. This reporter is not accustomed to running red lights, making four-lane Boston turns or intimidating pedestrians, but suddenly there at the gates of Camden Yards was free egress to the highway. The cabbie gets out to ask, "You know how to get to 195?" And we speed along together then this reporter passed by and waved him off. That ten minutes made the difference, but that was not the last miracle. Turning in the rental car with barely an hour, riding on the shuttle to the fourth gate, running up and no one in line (second miracle), and the machine wanted to refuse to let this reporter fly because it was too late to check the bag. The machine instructed this reporter to pick up a dedicated line and read off a number, and have a functionary say, "I hope you don't mind staying another day and paying extra?" Until a fellow human took the bag and issued the ticket. The concourse was steps away and no one was in the security line (third miracle). And the story ends with this reporter walking to the gate and having time for a phone call.