Boring Vacation Narrative - Day One

For those of you who are interested, I'm about to embark on a verbal re-creation of the events of last week's vacation. If these things bore the snot out of you, just know that I'll keep the same title, changing only the day. So, without further ado....

Florida - The Vacation

The day began early, probably as early as it ended late the night before. Actually, it ended in the very early hours just past midnight, and I got up at my usual work day time at 4:30. Figured I could nap on the plane if need be.

Got up, dressed, did some last minute things, and shut down the computer after one final blog note. Pat had emailed me the night before, saying she expected to be at our house by 7 a.m. or so. I needed to run to Wal-Mart to pick up photo batteries which hadn't made it onto the pre-vacation list o' stuff. We had time to to make that run before Pat arrived. Put a note on the door and prepared to go when...

The phone rang. It was Barb, calling to let me know that she and Darald were at the Ft. Myers airport checking things out prior to our arrival. It was 7:30 a.m. there. Our flight wasn't due in till after 4.

They had driven into Ft. Myers that morning. They'd not been to the house we'd rented or anything yet. Barb wanted to talk about a whole bunch of minor stuff, just the stuff of conversation. I had to gently make her understand that we really didn't have time for conversation, for we had a plane to catch at 9:40.

Got her off the phone and we headed to Wal-Mart, picked up our items and hurried home. Pat hadn't arrived yet; she'd gotten lost in the maze of road construction, so had to back track.

Kirk picked us up at 8 and by the time we loaded, it was about 8:20 or so. We got to the airport about 8:40, got checked in and luggage processed and Pat and I headed to the bathroom with about 15 minutes to spare, or so we thought.

While ensconced on the john, we heard our flight/gate announced. We finished up, hurried out and headed to the security checkpoint. Shoes off, pockets emptied, carry on, purse, and camera bag on the conveyer. I went through the scanner and it went off.

"Are you wearing a belt?"

"No".

"Step through" BUZZZZZZZZ!

"Cell phone?"

Shit. I forgot I'd stuffed it in my jeans pocket. Fished it out, threw it on the conveyer and stepped through again. I was cleared.

But, my carry on and purse were not. I'd forgotten my inhaler was in my purse pocket, and I didn't know what could be wrong with my carry on.

Security tore into my bag and I found out that the plastic zippered insert was not enough for my little bottles. They had to be in a ziploc bag. Okay.

Then my deodorant and toothpaste was rejected for being "too big". "Nothing over 3 oz. allowed. Do you want them thrown or donated?"

Well, f***. I thought I'd done everything right. I said to donate them. But, the fun was not over yet. The girl pulled out a pair of 8 inch shears. These were shears I used to use in my grooming shop. When I fell in love with another pair, I quit using these, and Robert took them over to trim his moustache.

Of course they didn't meet the requirement. They were well over the limit for size. Security was glaring at me. I turned around and glared at Robert.

"Did you put SCISSORS in my carry on?"

He's behind me in line, getting "patted down" because they never believe his little medical card that tells that he has an artificial knee, even though the scanner specifically only goes off when near his knee. And, he was wearing shorts, so it's not like he was hiding anything.

"No, I didn't..." and suddenly a sheepish look crossed his face. "Uh, oh, yeah, I did. I forgot."

Well, DUH! What are you thinking!!!!! I told Security that my son was standing over at the gate and he'd take the shears home. After all, they were very expensive shears, well over a hundred bucks when I bought them years ago and I didn't want to lose them. So, we finally got through security, and headed upstairs to wait for our gate to be called.

But wait....what's that I hear?

"Flight **** final boarding at Gate 4." I started running! And we made the gate by about a minute. They'd decided to "up" the gate time, even though it still had our original time listed on the board. That's just not FAIR, airline folks!

We settled into the puddle jumper and headed for O'Hare. We had a two hour layover, so we headed for our next gate which was about a mile from where we disembarked. I was looking for the nearest Cinnabon. I have this little deal with myself. I have to have a cinnamon roll at every new airport I go to with a Cinnabon. But, this day Cinnabon was not in the area of our gate. I smelled the lovely aroma of them, but alas, it was not to be. But, oh well. I've had Cinnabon at O'Hare before, so it's already been checked off my list.

We grabbed Chinese at the food court. And, bottled water. It's outrageous that they charge $2.89 for bottled water, but you can't take an open bottle on the plane with you.

After lunch and another pee break, we headed to wait for our gate. Again, we had barely gotten settled when they called for boarding almost 20 minutes early. Again, our flight left the ground about ten minutes prior to our scheduled leave time.

I called Barb before we left, to let her know we were taking off, and it looked as though we'd be on schedule.

"Are you at the house?"

"No, we're at Wal-Mart." I just about began to bang my head. You see, it's a huge joke in our family that Barb lives at Wal-Mart and Goodwill stores. I couldn't believe it. She's 1200 miles from home, and where is she? WAL-MART! Apparently she couldn't wait to get her pictures developed, so they stopped to do a one hour photo thing before coming to meet us at the airport.

"Kathy, the house is really nice. But, I want to tell you that Darald and I took the "big" bedroom and you and Bob can have the one with the twin beds."

I thought this was weird to be commented on. After all, I didn't care. They had procured the house and were there first, so I figured no explanation was necessary. But her tone was very defensive and my first thought upon hearing it was along the lines of, "Uh-oh...what's wrong with the smaller bedroom?" I didn't ask, though, and figured we'd find out soon enough.

Both our flights were great. I love to fly, though, so it's always a treat for me. We got into Ft. Myers about ten minutes ahead of schedule and headed to the luggage conveyers. On the way we ran into Barb and Darald, who were sitting on a bench waiting for us. We picked up our luggage and asked Darald where the van was. It was, of course, in the short term ramp. Thing is, he'd forgotten which door he'd come into, so he didn't remember exactly where he parked. So, we waited, and waited and waited...and about a half hour later, he showed up with the van. But, he hadn't brought the new van, he'd brought the old van...the one with over 140K on it. Robert and I just kind of looked at each other. We'd originally thought we might rent a car, but had decided to hold off and do it later after we arrived and made an itinerary of sorts.

After loading the luggage, we got into the van and headed to our home for the next week. And we drove and drove and drove. An hour went by, then it crept toward two hours.

Where the hell IS this place he's rented? It's in North Ft. Myers. The airport is in the southeastern part of Ft. Myers, but still....

It turns out that Darald decided to take Hwy 41 which is a more 'scenic' route. By scenic, I mean that while it's not the business route, it's the route that takes you past every mall, every Mel's Diner, every car dealer, and every set of stop lights. And, since 'high season' just concluded, the lights haven't been switched to a faster setting for the quieter time of year, traffic-wise. So each red light was a minimum of a four minute wait. Most were six minutes. Multiply that by about 100 red lights and you have lost an hour in drive time already.

Once we arrived at the house, we found that it was, indeed, a gated community. We showed our pass and headed in. I was having fond thoughts of a dip in the pool. After all, we got on a plane in 60 degree weather and arrived in 90 degree weather. A pool would have felt good!

But...there was no pool at the house as we'd been told. There were two pools at the community, but they were not in our back yard! Darn! The house was nice - two bedrooms, one a king-sized master with private bath, and a smaller bedroom with two...beds. Sort of. These were not anything more than the cheapest of frames with a thin mattress thrown over 'em. I could see why Barb and Darald took the master bedroom. The beds creaked and groaned and *wobbled* Robert and I are not obese by any means, but we do carry extra weight and we looked at each other in what I'd describe as horror. But, what could we do? Pat's bed was a hideaway bed in the living room.

Oh well. We'd just have to see what happened.

But soon it was time to think about getting some dinner and finding a grocery store for some breakfast and snack supplies.

I'm not used to people not doing their "homework" prior to a trip. I had done plenty as far as places to see, but as I was not the one with the vehicle, I didn't bother to check out basic routes, nearby grocery stores, etc. So, with that in mind, we headed back toward Ft. Myers to find a restaurant.

We told Darald that there was no way we were going to eat at McDonalds. And, whenever we found a place, it was rejected for a variety of reasons. We were beginning to get impatient and snappy because we were tired and hungry.

Finally we found a Perkins. We put in our order and visited. I had forgotten about the South's routine question of "do you want sweet tea or unsweetened tea?" (Unsweetened, please...I don't know how folks drink the sweetened tea...that stuff grows hair on your teeth!) And, it's so delightful to be treated with verbal respect: "Yes Ma'am". How can people not be polite back?

We enjoyed our meal, and I asked for directions to nearby grocery stores. Of course, Darald ignored what he was told and we ended up in a very bad bad section of Ft Myers in a grocery store I wouldn't have gone to alone. (There is safety in numbers, however!) We hurried out of there, jumped in the van and got the hell out of that part of town and headed back to our little house.

On the way, Barb began talking about all the things we could do at the community.
She said, "We can golf if we want to, we can use the pools. We can rent golf carts and drive around and look at all the houses here in the community. Wouldn't that be FUN?"

And then to top it off..."And guess what? Tonight and Friday night, they have kareoke at the clubhouse! We should go! Bob, you'd be really good at that!"

Robert just about shit. He gave me the 'no f*cking way in hell' look. *giggle* It was followed with the 'don't you ever ask me to go on vacation with these particular relatives again' look. I'm sure you all know what look I'm talking about!

We had a few snacks and drinks (non-alcoholic) on the lanai, and decided to give it up fairly early. Our plans were to go down to Naples the next day to show Barb and Robert where our aunt had lived, to have lunch at a delightful place called Alice Sweetwater's, and to head down to the Naples Pier, and to do a little shopping.

We all crawled into our jammies, pulled the couch apart to make Pat's bed and we all turned in.

Robert had crawled into one of the twin beds already by the time I got there. I began to crawl into the other one.

SCREECH, WOBBLE WOBBLE. SCREECH!

Oh. My. God. We're not talking about a little shudder here, we're talking about a heaving of land. The bed I crawled into did not just move a little, it weaved back and forth like a drunken sailor who hasn't gotten his land legs yet.

And, not only did it move, it had no support, so I was in the middle of a valley.

Maybe if I hold very still and only move if I have to.....

So, I carefully rolled to my side, the one I fall asleep on.

CRRRRREEEEEEEEAAAAK. SCREEEEECH! wobblewobblewobblewobble.

I held my breath. It didn't break. I began to breath again. SCREEECH!

I looked over at Robert.

"I can't do this." I pulled the blankets and pillows off the bed and crawled on the floor next to the bed and slept on the floor. Just like camping, minus the bugs.

In spite of it all, I did fall asleep, only waking when I'd move and hit my head on the leg of that godforsaken bed.

And that's it for now.

The adventure continues next time. Look for it under "Day Two".