Better Luck Next Time

My husband came back from Phoenix almost a week ago. He, along with half our state, went to witness what they hoped would be college football history, as Clemson, the number one team, battled Alabama, number two, at the National Championship game. Clemson has not won a national championship since 1981, so this was kind of a big deal in the college football world, especially here in South Carolina. This will be the extent of football references I plan on making for at least nine months, so if you are into that, enjoy it while you can.

I wanted to go to Phoenix too. We lived there the first year we were married, but it’s been almost twenty years since I’ve been there. January is the perfect time for a visit; it cures the seasonal affective disorder and it isn’t yet brain-roasting temperatures. Unfortunately, it was too expensive for all of us to go, and since I didn’t give a shit about the football game, it was decided I should stay home and take care of the teenagers and the cats and any other related caretaking items.

Just to be clear, it wasn’t my decision.

Thursday night before he left, my husband had to assess a small problem. It seemed my older daughter’s car was acting funny, not the ha-ha way, but the weird way. The interior lights flashed on and off, the radio stopped working, the nifty screen with all the information went black, and the battery warning light illumined. She suspected something was wrong with the battery or she had a poltergeist, but either way, she was scared to drive it.

When my husband came home from work, he went outside to check out the car. He drove around for about five minutes and declared the car, “Fine.”

E, my daughter, disagreed with him, as she normally does, and refused to drive it. So another decision was made. My husband would drive the iffy car to the airport in the morning for his 6:30 flight, and E would drive his car to school.

I didn’t have a problem with this decision.

The next morning, my husband awoke at four am to get ready for his trip. I slept through most of it, which for me is unusual. I am not the deepest of sleepers for the wee hours of the morning. I didn’t hear him leave, but at 5:36 am, I did hear my phone ring.

Him: My car fucking broke down.

Me: Where are you?
Him: Across the street from the fucking airport. Do you, can you come get me and take me to the airport?
Me: Did you call the airline to let them know you are running late?
Him: I can’t get the phone number.

Ok, let’s pause here for a sec.  That thing in his hand, that he used to call me, that is a computer too. It can find the airline phone number. It can also find Uber.

Me: Let me put in my contacts and I’ll be there soon.

Him: Hurry. I don’t want to miss my flight.

Ten minutes later, I’m in the car, pajamas, the first pair of shoes I found that did not involve tying, and my night guard still clenched tightly between my teeth. It was raining, and dark, and prime animals that dart in front of cars hour. I took the narrow, winding back roads from our house to where I assumed his car was. The rain picked up. I approached the QT gas station at the corner. In the middle of the road, at the red light, facing the entrance to the airport, was my daughter’s car with the hood open.

I turned into the gas station parking lot and instead of an animal dashing in front of me, it was my husband. He ran through the parking lot in his khakis and wool blazer, like OJ Simpson in the Hertz commercial from the 1970’s. I didn’t hit him, luckily, and just slowly followed him in my car, leaving some space as he got his suitcase and backpack out of the trunk. He dashed to my car and threw his stuff in the backseat.  The time was 5:46.

Me: Can you believe I heard my phone ring?

Him: No! I am glad you did. Thanks for coming to get me.
Me: How many times did you call me?
Him: Just once.
Me: That’s how lightly I sleep!

He just exhaled.

Me: Did you call the airline to let them know you had car trouble but are on the way?

Him: No, because I wasted all my time with the insurance company.

We don’t have AAA, but we do have roadside coverage through our car insurance. It’s pretty cheap, and apparently it gets you a tow truck with the same amount of waiting time as the competition.

Him: The tow truck can’t be here for another forty-five minutes, but get this…she asked me if I wanted to do a survey! At 5:30 in the fucking morning, while my car is broken down on the way to the airport to catch a 6:30 flight, she wants to know if I would like to answer a few questions! What the fuck? No, I don’t want to answer any of your goddamn questions! If I was in an accident and needed an ambulance, would she say, we will contact the dispatcher but first would you like to take a survey?!? Jesus people are so stupid! Can’t anyone think for them fucking selves anymore? Asking someone to take a survey when all they want is roadside assistance!

I realize that tirade has a lot of exclamation points. If there were a stronger form of punctuation to convey the anger and frustration with which my husband yelled, I would use it.

Me: Is that what you said to her?

Him: No I didn’t say that! Of course I didn’t say that! I just said something like ‘Look lady, I don’t mean to be rude, but I am kind of in a hurry here, so I don’t want to answer…’
Me: Your goddamn questions?
Him: Close enough.

In case you were wondering, he made the flight on time. My daughter felt validated. He enjoyed his trip. Clemson lost. The car is repaired. And I already told him that next year, if Clemson finds itself again in contention for a national championship, that I will be joining him in sunny Florida. We can even drive my car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Jolly Good First Day

Have you ever taken a red eye flight? It seems like a good idea, traveling during your sleeping hours, very efficient really, unless you want to function the next day when you arrive at your destination. Shitty sleep upright in a tiny seat in a tube traveling through the air really isn’t the best way to get rest. But who cares, because you are going on a trip, or something like that.

We flew the red eye to London, which in addition to being a seven hour flight, is also five time zones ahead of us. I don’t much care for flying, which meant that in addition to a seven hour flight and a five time zone adjustment, I also was floating on a nice cloud of Xanax washed down with a bottle of cheap red wine. If you asked me what happened between our landing after eleven in the morning and dinner that night, I would have some significant difficulty piecing it all together. Let’s just see how much I can remember.

Here’s something that’s a little different: European time is a twenty-four hour clock. While we count to twelve and then repeat, those clever Europeans go from one to twenty-four. And yes, midnight is actually 00:00. For vacationing Americans, it adds a level of math to an otherwise fun vacation. I wonder if they have numbers on their watches with faces or if they went military digital.

If telling time wasn’t enough of a challenge, then why not throw in the whole money thing. We are fond of our dollars and cents here at home. In England, it’s pounds and pence, and the queen is on all of it. And coins, Lord, the coins. We never could figure out how much anything was worth, and my husband has a doctorate. Luckily, most everyone takes credit cards (with microchips, so plan accordingly) but there are times when cash was a necessity, and those times made us all feel like ignorant kindergarteners. I wanted a worksheet to color in or a play register or something just to practice.

We spent a crazy amount of time at the airport, just trying to orient ourselves.  We stood for what felt like an hour in the customs line and then stood in another line to exchange money at what had to be a pretty shitty rate. After that, we stopped at what looked like an independent coffee house, only to find out that it was a chain, before we lamented how much better the chains are anywhere but home.

My husband got in line to buy tube tickets and ask out how to get to Kensington while the girls and I protected our pile of luggage from potential pickpockets and thieves. All that took another hour before we figured out what the hell we were doing. Seriously, we spent almost as much time at the airport as we did flying there across the ocean.

We emerged from the tube station with our rolling suitcases in tow, orienting ourselves not only to the direction of our hotel but also the driving. You don’t look to the left before crossing, you look to the right. If you can’t remember, just look down, as it is written on every crosswalk. Is that just for non-British visitors, or do even the Londoners have trouble remembering which way to look before crossing the road?

While walking to our hotel, we passed the most amazing assortment of high end cars along the way. Bentleys, Maseratis, Lamborghinis, Ferrari, Aston Martins. I might see one of those every now and again at home, but this was literally every car on the street. BMWs and Mercedes in London are like Hondas and Toyotas at home, practical and affordable. Is everyone in London this rich, or is it a Kensington thing? The parallel parking spaces lined both sides of the street and even had handicapped spaces, labeled clearly on the road as “disabled.” Those Brits don’t need some cute little blue wheelchair symbol; the word disabled is bloody fine for them.

After checking in and dragging our luggage upstairs, we freshened up and headed to the Museum of Natural History. Every step reminded me we weren’t in the US anymore. The sidewalks were old. The buildings were old, each older than the one next to it. Even the signature red phone booths were old. When was the last time you saw a pay phone in America? I didn’t step inside to see if they actually had functioning phones because I didn’t want also want to find out if the booth smelled like urine.

The Museum of Natural History was not like the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian is like it, really like every museum we went to in London and Paris, only with a much smaller collection. These buildings and their contents reek of history. They are positively infested with it.

We and a few other lollygaggers were forced from the museum promptly at 17:50. You do the math, and then stop trying to make sense of it. We staggered out to the street, trying to decide what to do next. The museums were closed, we weren’t hungry, and we didn’t know where to go, so we started walking over the uneven stones of the sidewalk. We had a few moments of feeling unsafe, but that was more due to our American paranoia than any actual threat. We walked and walked, and then we looked up at nirvana, only it’s called Harrods.

Have you ever been to Harrods? It’s a department store that dates back to the 1800’s and a must-see for anyone who likes shopping and eating and people watching and creating generalizations about other ethnic groups. I only say that because the only people there besides other American tourists were Saudi Arabian shoppers, and the Saudis were ready to throw down some serious poundage. We minced from department to department, trying to not touch anything worth more than our plane tickets or stumble and God forbid break something that would cost our daughters a year in college, while all around us, wealthy, swarthy Arabic men and their insanely gorgeous and overly covered ladies who walked several steps behind them were catered to in the watch and shoe and other designer sections. Both my feet and my overactive imagination just wanted to sit down and take it all in.

We took a detour to the Diana and Dodi Memorial on the lower level. I wanted to get a picture, but the pilgrimage line was too long for me to snap a quick one. Instead, I stood behind more Saudi shoppers and tried to explain to my teenage daughters who Diana and Dodi were and why they are remembered in a department store with a cheesy statue and glamour shots. It took just enough time before it was my time to capture the moment.

My children wanted to stop by the toy department, ogling over toys they would have wanted if they were younger or those like the ones they had, only with cooler, British names. We all were a little sad that we had no reason to buy anything, no more tank engines or woodland creature families dressed in gingham.

We consoled ourselves in the great food hall. We were too late for the true Harrods ice cream experience, but we improved our moods by walking past the displays of fruits and vegetables, pungent cheeses and smoky charcuterie, seafood and sushi and meat pies and oh, the pastries and breads. It was overwhelming, really, and we hadn’t had dinner, and in our heads it was either mid-afternoon or a day later. We were trying to make a decision about what to eat, which as a family is not our strong suit, when the bakers began condensing their display before closing time. We decided to get not quite but close to one of each, over twenty pounds’ worth of flaky pastry creations.

We limped back to our hotel room and ate them all standing over our bed, flakes raining down on the covers. Our first day of London was everything travel should be, confusing and delightful and informative and overwhelming and amusing and just, just amazing.