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Kimball Perry II: It Just Gets Worse
August 11, 2006 11:01 AM
Well, between last night and this morning, someone at the Enquirer decided it looked stupid to have a reporter write an entire "local angle" story and not mention until a parenthetical at the very end that the subjects of said story are the reporter's mother and sister.
So this morning we have Kimball Perry II, live and in the first person. He begins:
I will never hear the end of it now.
Us too, apparently!
I went to my mother's Independence home Saturday to make sure preparations for her dream trip to Scotland were in order.
My mother - Audrea Landrum, 67 - is a history and genealogy buff who has tracked our family tree back to the small Scotland village and beyond. She wanted to go there to see it.
"Danny Boy" is Scotch, right? Mom loves "Danny Boy."
Her passport, papers and packing needed to be done before she flew out Wednesday, accompanied by my 43-year-old sister, Nicole Perry, of Elsmere.
They are two of the biggest scaredy-cats ever.
EVER! They are totally scaredy-cats!
After small talk, Mom sat me down at the kitchen table and solemnly said, "If there is a terrorist attack or we get abducted, don't pay any ransom. We'll be fine. I've had a good life, and I'll be OK with whatever happens."
Then, she told me how babies are made. Peenies and hoo-haas!
Trying to roll my eyes discreetly, I sighed and said, "That will never happen."
A terrorist attack, I mean. Not the peenies and hoo-haas!
Until it almost did ...
Dum Dum DUM!
Mom and Nicole were on a flight that landed Thursday at London's Heathrow Airport as news was breaking that British authorities reported they'd thwarted a potential major terrorist attack.
"We have been through hell," Mom said when I talked to her Thursday morning from the newsroom.
"Ohh Danny booooy, the pipes, the pipes are calling," she warbled softly.
"The flight was awesome until we landed," Nicole added.
"We got to go up in the sky and everything and they have a bathroom in the back that is kind of stinky but the nice lady gave me juice. It was AWESOME!"
They knew nothing of the arrest of two dozen terrorism suspects and the alleged plan to smuggle explosives onto planes until, just before descending to land in London, the pilot told the passengers that there were "security problems" on the ground.
Nothing! They knew nothing of the dangers they faced! Dum DUM DUM!!!
"We had to park on the tarmac. We didn't know what was going on," Mom said. "We were the only plane that could land because they couldn't do anything with us."
Calgon, take me away!
That lone plane sat on the tarmac for about 30 minutes, she said, before airport workers told them to get off the plane and walk - across the runways - to the airport terminal.
They had to walk - across the runways - to the airport terminal.
"It was scary, because we didn't know what was going on," Mom said. "Heathrow is a madhouse. We didn't even go through customs. They just stamped our passports and told us to go on. They didn't check our luggage or anything. It was just total chaos."
"I swear, I think that Heathrow is bigger than Epcot!" she exclaimed.
Although normally a worrier, she brushed off questions about her fear.
"Ain't no sense being scared. We've got to go home somehow," she said as she sat on the balcony of the cruise ship they boarded after leaving Heathrow.
Most vexing to my sister was the inconvenience.
"We've had the same clothes on for two days, and we haven't brushed our teeth," she said.
Vexing!
"Nicole said she is never doing this again," Mom said.
My sister, though, kept a sense of humor, noting that she spotted a celebrity inside the airport.
"I walked right past (actor) Christian Slater. I'm taller than him. Ha."
"I'm not even slightly bitter about being Nicole Perry, 43, of Elsmere, Kentucky," she added.
As for me, I'm just glad I didn't have to pay a ransom.
I totally heard Al Qaeda has you drop off the ransom money in the woods, late at night, in unmarked bills. And you are supposed to come alone! SCARY!
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LOL!
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"They had to walk - across the runways - to the airport terminal."
I guess they've never seen 'Casablanca', eh? There was a time when EVERYONE walked across the tarmac. Out in the open! You could even feel the wind on your face and everything! Sheesh, talk about provincial. There used to be a whole line of literature focussed on the Country Cousins, or the Innocents Abroad, but who needs fiction when we have newspapers?