So we travelled this past week to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. I hope you had the chance to do the same and, if you couldn’t, I hope you enjoyed the heck out of being able to eat a meal on your own schedule and watch whatever you wanted on television.

I actually had it all—family, eating when I was hungry, and watching what I wanted to watch on TV—but, unfortunately, I’m a fan of Michigan football and they had their ass handed to them by Ohio State, and no amount of cranberry jello salad or apple pie with whipped cream can make me unsee that horrible game.

The return home was complicated by dropping my son at Chicago’s O’Hare airport along the way. The trick was leaving at five-thirty in the morning and digging out from the record-setting snow that had fallen. But our host had helped clean the car and driveway the night before so that, in the morning, I only had to shovel out the three tons of ice dumped into the apron by the snow plow.

We braved the icy roads and made it to the airport in time. Traffic was crazy, but we got out and headed back to Michigan. As we made our way around Chicago, my son called for help because Spirit Airlines had moved their check-in operations and it was chaotic. They didn’t have signage up, and no one else seemed to know what was happening. That was only the beginning…

His flight was perpetually delayed until, six hour later, it was cancelled. Rebooking was a joke as it was going to be one of the busiest travel days of the year and there just weren’t flights available until three days hence.

He was officially stranded at O’Hare airport.

Although I’d been home in Michigan already for a couple of hours, I decided to make a rescue attempt. Although the family in Wisconsin was closer, they’d have him for at least two days and they had plenty of stuff going on. Not that he’s a burden, but it seemed better that, as long as I had the power to attempt the rescue, and it wouldn’t be an undue risk, I’d attempt it.

In best conditions, the trip to O’Hare is 3.5 hours. Our drive from there had just taken five hours—snow and heavy traffic caused the delays—but I thought things might be lighter by now. I was wrong.

If anything, the traffic getting out of Michigan was heavier, with frequent slowdowns and lake effect snow as we approached Indiana. Tough sledding, as I like to say, and it was a full five hours to get there.

The crazy part was the last three miles, which took a full thirty minutes, as ten thousand cars all squeezed onto the same road to O’Hare. I violated a dozen traffic laws trying to keep moving forward. What helped the most was tailgating a Park ‘n Ride shuttle bus; I figured if anybody can navigate this insane clown posse of traffic, it’s the cagey driver of a shuttle bus. I stayed so close to his rear end I could tell what brand of toilet paper he used, and that the bus was in need of an oil change.

I got to our designated point and picked him up and we were on our way home, driving into the darkness along increasingly deserted highways. Three and a half hours later, we were safely home.

I had clocked about 13.5 hours driving that day. I could have been in Little Rock, Arkansas (a trip I made in February) or in Queens, New York (12 hours driving, 1.5 hours to find a parking spot). We were safe, and sound, and the only injury was that my butt was sore for all the wrong reasons.

It reminded me a little of the scene from Little Miss Sunshine when they leave their no-talent kid at the gas station and have to go back for her. It also reminded me of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, in that I didn’t want my son sitting there, wondering if he’d ever get home, especially without a copy of The Canadian Mounted to help pass the time (that’s the book John Candy is reading when he and Steve Martin see each other for the second time).

I also thought of the book Prophet Song, by Paul Lynch, which won a recent Booker Prize (best English language book in the world, give or take).

It’s the story of a woman trying to keep her family intact when a right-wing party takes control of their country and wages war against the citizens who dare complain about their policies. (Sound familiar?)

With her 13-year old son wounded by shrapnel while playing in the yard after their neighborhood is shelled, she ventures across the front battle lines to find medical help, then must cross and re-cross the battle lines to try to bring him home.

I thought, if that fictitious character could do that for her son, I can drive in mid-sized SUV through some heavy traffic for mine.

I highly recommend Prophet Song. However, it’s a brutally honest story. If you’re remotely aware of what authoritarians do to cling to power, you’ll be disturbed to your core by this book. If you’re in a stressful place, or just dreading Christmas shopping, this book may shatter you.

Maybe You’d Like

I’m offering this link to a giveaway for Christian books, which is clearly not the genre in which I write, but I was supposed to promote a different giveaway last week and couldn’t pull it off. Out of sense of fair play and a little bit of guilt, I’m sharing this link for those who might dig it: https://authorsxp.com/giveaway

I’m also re-posting the other giveaways I was in last month, both of which are still running, in case you missed them…

I’ve joined with authors for a promotional giveaway of fantasy and sci-fi. Go check out the Thankful for the Woo-niverse Giveaway

https://storyoriginapp.com/to/mS4vz5Z

I’ve teamed up with authors for a group promo called: Fiction Giveaway Extravaganza. With “extravaganza” in the title, you know it has to be good. For real though, it is a mix of everything, so take a look!

https://storyoriginapp.com/to/4HTeMtG

Next Picayune

Thanks for reading the Mickey Picayune!

All the best,

Mickey

P.S. For those of you who picked up a copy of Ashley Undone recently, nothing helps like reviewing the book. It can be anywhere you’re comfortable reviewing books, and here’s a link to the Amazon page where you can do that if you don’t know anything better. (Thanks in advance.)