The TSA Quarter

This week found me traveling back to Houston, as I was a presenter at a conference.
Last weekend in St. Louis, we were without power for 36 hours thanks to the wonderful ice storm. I was actually worried, not because it was getting cold in the cassa, but because I didn't have any clean clothes for my trip! Thankfully the power turned back on Sunday afternoon, and I was able to get my wash going.

I left that weather behind, only to find ice warning in Houston! And my conference being cancelled on the second day, due to people in Houston going crazy about 3-4 icicles around town. But it was nice, since I was able to go have lunch with Chris, and discussed what he should be doing with his found change money. Good ideas! (For some reason, Chris didn't mention our lunch on his blog! What kind of friend is he?)

Amazingly, I didn't find any change at the STL TSA check-point. I found 2 pennies at the Houston TSA check-point, and since I had some time to kill at the airport, I did a change walk and found 1 dime and 4 pennies (One of which was from 1969).

I also walked around looking for luggage carts to return for the reward. I found two, but as I was returning the second cart, I ran into a problem, it was so full of carts, that I couldn't get my return past the line needed to trigger my quarter reward, but I also couldn't pull the cart out again. While I was messing with it, a TSA employee walked by with a luggage cart, carrying some stuff. She asked me what the problem was, and I explained the situation to her. Here was the rest of our exchange;

Bailey - "Can you get me my refund" (Knowing she couldn't)
TSA - "Um no. You need to contact Smart Cart"
Bailey - "Well is anyone from Smart Cart here?"
TSA - "Not that I know of"
Bailey - "Well, I guess I'll just push this until something breaks, or I get my quarter" (As I begin to push and rattle the carts)
TSA - "If you want a quarter that bad I'll give you one!"
Bailey - "Alright"

She ended up getting a quarter out of her pocket, which I put in the reward slot, then grabbed out and smiled! I'm still not sure if I should have taken the quarter from her or not, but it is now done.

While I was looking for more carts, I did find a quarter near another Smart Cart station, which sadly would have had room for my second found cart!

Finally, I need to update a story that I told to Chris over the phone, and he has been BEGGING me to blog about. While I was driving to Indiana last time, I made a few stops at some car washes along the way. When I was at a car wash in Spencer, I was on the phone with Chris, and mentioned that I just couldn't check the back vacuum cleaner area. This was because a guy pulled up in a 1970's car, wearing a full camouflage outfit, got out and stumbled around. Then put his hands on his knees and just yodeled (our slang term for vomit) all over the place. Chris will ALWAYS crack up when anyone mentions yodeling, so he really enjoyed this, but also agreed that you should stay away from anyone who is yodeling at a car wash.

I won't get to into this, but when we used to go to Astros games, Chris and I would discuss yodel sometimes, because it would always get us laughing. But we did have some thought put into the possibility of going to the overhang in center field and yodeling onto the field, and then what would happen. This and "This Hot Dog tastes like soap" are a few of my favorite memories from my time with Chris as Astros games.

Total since last post - $0.41
Total for the Race - $212.27