Sorry to hear you missed your flight. It sucks but hopefully it won’t ruin your plans.

As for the story:

It was 15 years ago, my parents, my two siblings, and me were about to travel to Canada to visit our aunt. For all of us, it was our first ever transatlantic flight. We were all so excited about it, that none of us could catch a bit of sleep the day before leaving.

It required 5h of travel to catch the plane in the capital, so we had to leave at like 4 am to be on time for it. But somehow we manage to do it and arrive on time at the airport.

Excitation is at its maximum, finally our big trip is around the corner. We go to the check in desk, cue for a good a hour, and once our turn come, get asked for our passport. We all look at my father that start frenetically look in his pockets, then handbags to find our passport. But no sign of them. He start sweating heavily, ask my mother if she kept them. No, not with her neither. Big panic moment, everybody shouting, undoing all the luggages in order to find them. But nothing. We forgot our passport. No way to catch the plane.

Our father go back to our place, 5h away from the airport, while we stayed in a hotel for the night. Turns out the passport were on my parent shelf. Just one story higher than were they always were. My mother being quite short did’t see them and assumed my father had them.

We went back to the airport on the next day to see what we could do to save our trip. We got lucky as we got access to another plane, for free, and got upgraded to first class as a bonus, due to 5 other passengers missing their flight ! But we had 5 mins to catch it. The run though the check-in, security, the terminal gates was quite epic to fathom !