As if hunting for a smoking area wasn’t fun enough to occupy our 4-hour layover at O’Hare International Airport, mom decided that she needed airport food. Now, it wasn’t that she was hungry. No, this wasn’t the case.

“It’s almost like tradition,” she says beaming that smile of hers.

“Yogurt is somehow a tradition? Do tell,” I ask.

“Not really yogurt, but eating in the airport,” she quips back.

“Oh hell, now I’ve heard it all. That’s like me running right to Manchu Wok for Lo-mein everytime I hit the ground. It ain’t tradition, Mama. It’s a matter of eating from being bored. Pure and simple,” I lecture.

“Well, whatever you want to call it, Missy. I want a frozen yogurt and we’re gonna walk until we find one,” she commands. “Did you see anyplace to get one?”

“I saw a fat guy up by the security check thing, but I think it was ice cream, not yogurt,” I tell her.

“I want fat-free-frozen vanilla yogurt…” she says dreamily thinking about diggin’ in.

Not ice cream. Not chocolate. Not full of fat…. No.

With that I pick up my 50 pound carry-on bag at Gate K-5 and we start walking. We see a sign for frozen yogurt and head that way.

I have to say this should have been an extremely simple and painless task as right there in the “K” terminal are TWO, not just one, but TWO TCBY’s!!! Easy right?

Well, not so much. Off we go…

The lil dude at the first TCBY didn’t have any vanilla, SO, he pointed us to the other food court way the hell down the way at gate K-15.

We get there, and sure enough, TCBY. We walk up smiling, only to see that the lady has the frozen yogurt machine torn down for cleaning. The sparkle immediately left my eyes.

So, we decided to take another walk and ended up in the “L” terminal. Only one TCBY and no vanilla. So we follow back out of “L” and wander over to “G”, only to find out after walking 2.5 miles to get there, that it’s a commuter terminal and they have no TCBY at all. Figures.

Defeated and depressed, we turn around with our heads hung low. The pep in our step was lost long ago as we shuffled along. All of a sudden, my mom happened to see a hidden food court area that we had somehow walked right past at least 3 times.

And in the very bad end of that little hidden jewel sat a TCBY. We walk up, skeptical that anything will come of the visit.

“Vanilla?” Mom asks the girl with that desperate tone in her voice.

“Sure. What size?” The girl says with an angelic smile on her face.

“Large!” Mom says completely satisfied.

It was as if the clouds parted, the heaven’s opened and a choir of angels started to sing Halleluja in unison.

“Want one?” Mom asked me.

“Nope. I wanna bagel.”