Too Many Daves

Before Marcie was due to return to Nine of Cups, I decided to fly back to the U.S. as well, to help my younger sister, Mary, deal with our mom's recent medical issues. Becky, at 96, was just in the hospital coping with a large and very persistent kidney stone. She is now in a transitional care unit getting her strength back, but it is quite likely she will need long term assistance once she is released from the facility. My sibs and I are looking at the options and I wanted to be there to help. I checked online and found a reasonable fare on a flight with Cathay Pacific that connected through Hong Kong. Not only would I get to fly on a new (to me) airline, but I've never been to Hong Kong. Even though I wouldn't be able to leave the airport, it would still be a bit of an adventure.

As I was checking in, the gate person told me that my name was interesting, because she had checked in another David Lynn about 20 minutes earlier. That is a coincidence. In my entire life, other than my younger son, I have never met another David Lynn. I know of the British golfer and a couple of professors named David Lynn, but I've never met them. There is also a guy with the same middle name as mine, David Edward Lynn, in Ohio, whom I've also not had the opportunity to meet. As far as I know, I'm not related to any of them, especially the one in Ohio.

The plane was almost two hours late and my LAX connection was going to be tight. As we were taxiing in, the flight attendant announced that there was a board posted at the gate with the name of everyone that had missed their connections. If our name was on the board, we should proceed to customer service to get re-booked.

When I got to the gate, I checked the board, and sure enough, there was my name. No... wait – that must be the other David Lynn, because that David is going to Xiaman, wherever that is. There's my name - David Edward Lynn – but they've mistakenly listed me as going to Seoul. Nope -wrong again. Apparently, not only were there three David Lynns aboard, but two of them have the same middle name. And those are just the ones that missed their connections. There might be another half dozen David Lynns aboard that made their connections. Either a very amazing coincidence or I missed the email announcing the international convention of David Lynn's that must have been just held in Perth. It's a good thing the plane didn't go down – a large percentage of the world's David Lynns, and as far as I know, 2/3 of all the David Edward Lynns, would have been wiped out.

I kept an eye out at the customer service desk for anyone with a David Lynn name badge on, but no luck. So, if any of the other David Lynns that were on that flight are reading this, please make sure I'm added to the mailing list for the next get-together.