Suddenly *Not So* Single Journey

Part Two: And Away We Go!

Friday, July 31st, 2009

We had, at the very last minute the night before, secured a ride to the airport with a guy S sometimes employed.  Yay, Brian!  Not only did he show up ON TIME, but he helped us load the luggage in and unload at the airport.

I was excited, since I love to fly, but also a bit nervous since S never had.  To make matters worse, when we left for the airport, we thought we were in different parts of the plane.  That was okay though.  I had a plan.  I was going to very nicely explain to whoever I thought would be most amenable to the idea that since he had never flown, we weren’t sure if he was a puker, and did he/she really want to take that chance?  Good plan, huh?

Well, as it turned out, it was entirely unnecessary.  We secured seats together once we checked in at the airport.  Well, we did the whole check in two hours early bit, as advised.

In Charlotte, they were so well organized that we were completed the entire process in all of twenty minutes.  With all that spare time, we wandered around exploring.  As mentioned before, S had never flown.  It was kind of fun, seeing everything through his eyes.  We tried out the moving sidewalks.  We looked around in every gift shop.  We visited all the gates, pausing to rock in the rocking chairs in front of some huge glass windows.  As it neared time for us to board, we stopped at the Rocky Mountain Chocolates shop.

See, suddenly it occurred to me, that with everything going on that morning, and despite the fact that I had cooked an entire pound of bacon before we left the house, the whole of my breakfast was an orange.  No way in hell was that going to tide me over until we landed at 2pm.  So, we stopped to get a truffle each.  (Because that truffle was going to go a long way to stave off hunger.  And because I was determined to be the first person in the history of travel to return from a cruise weighing the same as when I left.)

There was no organized line, at first.  And when one finally formed, we had lost a few spots.  Keep in mind, this is in the airport.  Everyone is in a hurry to catch a plane.  This woman behind me is flipping her gourd while she waits.  She’s sighing.  She’s huffing.  She’s puffing.  Finally, when it’s our turn, she interrupts.

lady: Excuse me, but I’m in a hurry.

me: (I think I gave her one of my blank looks as I waited for her to grasp the stupidity of her remark) Uh huh.

lady: I really need to go.

me: I get it.

lady: (shifting)

me: Fine.  So go.  (I’m not sure why I was generous.  I mean, not that it was an uncharacteristic move, just that she was being so…grrr.)

At this point she orders three, count them THREE, candy coated apples that she asks to be sliced and bagged individually.  Now I’m ready to flip my gourd.  All I needed was two, count them, TWO stinking truffles that would have been dropped into a single bag, passed off, and I would have been on my way.  And I’m pretty sure I mentioned this to S, which may be why she made me feel like a total ass by paying for my truffles.  Damn it.  Just when I wanted to be good and annoyed for a minute.

Well, we boarded the plane.  I let him have the window seat while I sat in between him and stranger danger.  Stranger danger in this case was a mid twenties guy who was working on developing a genealogy website for his Irish family.  And he was…shall we say, a little larger than the average bear.  So he spent most of the flight seeping over into my seat.  And have I mentioned often enough that I HATE BEING TOUCHED BY STRANGERS.

We land, we get our luggage fairly quickly.  We find a line of taxis awaiting all of us unsuspecting tourists.  We hop in the nearest one, which was, of course, being driven by a foreigner from Haiti.  He takes us to the nearest liquor store on the way to our hotel in Miami Beach.  And then it’s on to Miami Beach Resort and Spa.

Here’s what you must understand about booking a hotel online.  It’s such a challenge to find a really great one.  There’s a lot to consider between location, price, amenities, decor…and we only needed to be there for one night.  I can handle almost anything for one night.  I once stayed in a motel in Virginia that had a rotten floor surrounding the toilet.  I just kept waiting for the thing to fall in on me.  And in Florence, Italy, I had to shove a wardrobe in front of the door, since it refused to lock.  So, most anything is a step up.

Well, we arrive, it looks great, a little fancier than we’ve stayed at before.  There is a concierge, which was a totally new concept for S.  And of course there are bellhops and valets.  We end up in the lobby, attempting to check in about forty-five minutes before the actual check-in time.  No big deal.  We’ve done this before.  Only now, our room isn’t ready.  And we find out our room is non-smoking and has no balcony.  (Mostly because there are virtually no rooms with balconies in Miami.  Strange.)  It’s now 3:15pm and Ghandi would have eaten more than I had that day.

As I have mentioned in the past…I get ugly when I’m not fed.  We’re waiting.  He’s doing well, despite the fact that he’s about to have a nic fit and he doesn’t trust leaving the luggage unattended in a strange city.  And my body is eating itself.  (Technically, it would mean my body was feasting.  I can afford to miss a meal.)  I’m digging through my purse for anything.  And I mean ANYTHING.  I would have eaten a cherry Chapstick.  Luckily, I didn’t have to get that desperate.  I had one of those mini-Tootsie pops.  It was cherry.  I don’t eat the tootsie roll part.  So, it was gone in seconds, leaving me with a mild sugar buzz.

With two minutes to spare for check-in, the man working on our reservation makes eye contact.  Now, picture it.  This is a relatively ritzy hotel on the beach in Miami.  There is a group of women dressed to impress, dripping with diamonds and other sparklies, and their truckload of designer luggage separating me from my room key and the promise of food after we dropped our bags.  I was as nice as I could muster, really.

me:  Excuse me!  (And then I literally blew through the center of the group.)

I’m five feet nothing.  S should be parting the way for me.  I reach the desk and start looking around for him.  Finally, I see him, doubled over laughing so hard that he can’t move.  We had stopped speaking about ten minutes before on the grounds that we didn’t want to say something that would wreck the rest of the vacation.  In that moment, brought together by laughter, all wounds were healed.  And he nicknamed me ‘the human bowling ball.’  Huh, really?  Because I have to tell you, I felt more like Moses parting the Red Sea.  Oh well.

Yeah.  I know I promised to tell you about being lost and alone in Miami today, but this post was already long enough.  Come back tomorrow and find out why I should have a GPS chip installed in me.

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