The Travel Blab
Sometimes Flying First Class Can Result in Poopy Flight
My daughter, her husband, and my 21-month-old grandson, Henry, recently flew to Florida. My daughter texted me that Henry had loved “fwying” and had been so well-behaved that the flight down had been “completely stress-free.”
We’d all had our reservations, of course, what with Henry being so young and being only the second time he’s flown. The first time he flew he was ten months old. Henry did fine. But on the return flight from Las Vegas his dad, Michael, was rendered completely incapacitated with a stomach ailment and had depleted an entire row of barf bags before the flight even took off. While her husband wretched in the window seat, my daughter, Carrie, seated in the middle, attempted to keep Henry still -- who squirmed and fussed and repeatedly swatted the head of a wide-eyed, horrified-looking man seated on my daughter‘s right in the aisle seat. Unbeknownst to this passenger, however, was the fact that my son was seated several rows back. Just before takeoff, when the barfing and the screeching baby reached unmanageable levels for my daughter, she called her brother on her cell phone and asked him if he would mind coming up to sit with her to help out. When Carrie leaned over to ask her seatmate if he would mind trading seats with her brother, he virtually vaulted out of his seat, dropped to his knees in the aisle and converted from Atheism to Christianity that very instant, having witnessed proof of the existence of a good and merciful God.
On this return trip from Florida, Henry and his parents somehow scored seats in business class. My daughter sent me a cell phone photo of Henry sitting on daddy’s lap in their plush accommodations.
The following day Henry’s dad brought him over. I excitedly asked Henry about his airplane ride.
“Henry, did you fly on an airplane?” I asked excitedly.
He looked up from his toys and replied, “Poop.”
Hmm. Either he wasn’t as thrilled with business class as his mother, or he was asking to be put on the potty.
Do you want to use the big potty?” I asked.
“No,” he confirmed.
The next day the mystery of the cryptic poop reply would be unraveled when I commented to my daughter how fortunate she was to have gotten bumped up to business class on their flight home. She then went on to tell me that because of Henry, their flight had almost been delayed.
“We waited until last to get on the plane,” she explained, “so that we wouldn’t have to try to keep Henry still while everyone else boarded.”
“And as soon as we sat down, Henry pooped his diaper.”
With only minutes until takeoff, Carrie took Henry into the bathroom and hastily changed his diaper, while the flight attendant stood outside telling her to hurry it up, they were about to take off.
She got back to her seat, got Henry strapped into his seat, and off they flew into the wild blue yonder. But no sooner had they climbed a thousand feet when Henry’s parents smelled a strong, familiar odor coming from the vicinity of his freshly changed diaper.
Even the flight attendant smelled it.
“Do you need a bag for that soiled diaper?” she leaned over and diplomatically whispered once they got to cruising level.
The soiled diaper she referred to had already been disposed of in the bathroom. But there was definitely another soiled diaper in the vicinity -- again.
“He pooped AGAIN!” Carrie lamented.
Well, that explains Henry’s brief remarks about his airplane ride. He pretty covered the high points in one word.
And if airlines announce new rules in the coming weeks barring kids who still wear diapers from flying in business class, you’ll know why.
Despite Mom's Best Effort's, She Finds Her Way to the Mayo Clinic
Raising four daughters recently paid off for my mother who required a trip to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. She had just enough kids to get her there seamlessly, with one left over who stayed behind but offered support via telephone.
The adjectives you might use to describe my family are: high strung, loud, impulsive, boisterous, and confused. And, so, when a member of our family falls ill, it rarely occurs to any of us that it’s a solemn occasion, deserving of a certain amount of pensive hand-wringing and thoughtful discussion. Instead, it is a time of high drama and hijinx that play out in family kitchens, sick beds, doctor’s offices, and on freeways.
I was the designated driver to transport my mother from Hayward, Wisconsin, where she lives with my sister, Julie, to the clinic which was about a five-hour drive. Probably not the best choice of drivers in the family, seeing as how on my way back home to southern Wisconsin from their place last summer I accidentally wound up in Minnesota. But, due to my other three sisters’ job obligations, I was the only choice.
I drove up to Hayward a couple days early to care for my mom while Julie and her husband, Joe, were away for the weekend.
The day before our scheduled departure, I had apparently made the dire mistake of telling mom that she could take her time getting ready the next morning, as we weren’t scheduled to leave for the clinic until 11:00 a.m. At three minutes to eleven I went into her room to find her lying in bed still not dressed.
“You said we weren’t on any schedule today,” she reasoned.
Back in the kitchen my sister shook her head - “You never should have told her that.”
Twenty minutes later mom came walking into the kitchen with the use of her walker, all dressed and ready to go. She sat down on a chair against the wall while Julie, Joe, and I pored over the atlas, discussing the best routes to the clinic. Several minutes later we turned around and mom was gone. We found her back in bed.
“I just had a bad spell,” said breathlessly. “I’ll be fine.
Back in the kitchen, I debated with my sister the finer points of perhaps calling the whole thing off, or at least calling for medical transport. Just when we both agreed I didn’t have the nervous system to drive and perform CPR at the same time if it became necessary, mom reappeared in the kitchen, ready to go. Again. We wasted no time whisking her out the door and jimmying her up into the Yukon using a wooden pallet and some plywood.
“Now, Cookie,” (that’s my nickname, whose origin mom would explain in detail to the endocrinology surgeon the next day, which I’m sure he found fascinating) Julie whispered through the driver’s side window, “whatever you do, don’t listen to any directions mom might try to give you. She will get you lost.”
She couched that caveat between, “And don’t worry of she gets short of breath,” and “Don’t pay any attention to her if she starts moaning.”
Not your typical bon voyage sentiments but thoughtful nonetheless.
After a blubbery farewell from Julie, mom and I headed down the driveway towards the unknown.
It was a beautiful late October day. The sun was shining and it was unusually warm. A perfect day for a clammy-handed drive.
A few hours into our trip I caught a glimpse of a Culver’s sign and we decided to pull off the freeway for some frozen custard.
“I don’t think it’s this exit,” mom said as I pulled onto the exit ramp. I turned left and mom spotted the Culver’s restaurant ahead.
“But how are you going to get back on the freeway?” my mother ruminated aloud.
“Back the same way I came,” I reassured her.
After we finished our custard, I waited to turn left out of the parking lot, and mom pointed to a road directly across the street. “There!” she said convincingly. “That looks like the way to the freeway.”
I looked at her warily.
It suddenly occurred to me that the very person responsible for my genetically-based absence of a sense of direction was sitting right next to me, on a journey where there was little or no room for error, trying to give me directions! That was even scarier than the prospect of having to do CPR.
“But don’t listen to me,” she quickly added, noting my Julie-told-me-not-to-listen-to-you look. “I’ll get you lost.”
I turned left to head back to the freeway that, until my mother tried to tell me otherwise, I was almost certain was right where I left it
It was.
Just before we reached the Rochester exit, mom’s announcement that she needed to use the restroom and the low gas warning light happened simultaneously.
We pulled into a gas station a few miles from the Mayo clinic. I could see one of its high rise buildings in the distance ahead.
I quickly filled the tank, and in within five minutes we glided to a stop in front of the Raddisson Hotel, where my other sister, Candi, waited outside with a wheelchair to whisk mom up to her tricked-out handicapped room with a comfy Sleep Number bed. The hotel also sported a skywalk that lead directly to the clinic’s maze of buildings.
The next morning mom would begin her five-day odyssey of exhaustive and exhausting medical tests. As I write this, she has three days left to go.
That is if she can find her way to all of her appointments. I found out first hand that, amazingly, she can even get the person who’s driving her wheelchair lost in no time.
Uncle Sam Doesn't Gamble On Errant Sneezes In Las Vegas
Dad gum gubmn’t! They ruined my brunch!
One of the main reasons my husband and I have developed a habit of flying off to Las Vegas a couple of times a year is to get as far away from the government as we possibly can. Specifically, the Tax Collection branch. Because our daily lives are pretty much devoted to discussing how in the hell we’re going to file our taxes, pay our taxes, pay the estimated taxes, pay the property taxes, pay the state taxes, get out of paying the taxes, and basically just bitching about taxes in general from the time we get up until the time we go to bed, we look forward to a change of scenery in which to have these same discussions. Las Vegas, we found, is a great place to go to because not only do you have an uninterrupted four-hour-long plane ride during which you can argue heatedly over the taxes, but you can also, at the same time, entertain the implausible fantasy that perhaps you will win enough money on the Wheel Of Fortune machine to pay off the taxes in full and perhaps even have enough left over to tip the cocktail waitress for the free drinks you drank at the nickel video poker machine.
By the way -- do you know what the difference is between a tax collector and a taxidermist? The taxidermist only takes the skin. Har! (Credited to Mark Twain.)
But, I digress.
So, when we finally arrive at our free accommodations in our compact rental car with our pocketful of free buffet vouchers, we’re good and ready to banish the IRS from our brains for a few blissful days and get down to winning some money for them -- part of which they will snatch, anyway, if the win is more than $1,000.
The one true luxury we afford ourselves in Vegas is something we discovered about 10 years ago, and which we schedule our trips around, is eating at the Sterling Brunch at Bally’s casino. The brunch is served only on Sundays, serves unlimited French champagne, and costs about a hundred bucks a head. We never go to Vegas without eating there, even if it’s the only meal we eat during the entire stay. It is the most elegant array of gourmet food offerings packed into the smallest buffet area in all of Las Vegas -- featuring fine International cheeses, steamed lobster tails, shrimp cocktail, king crab legs, sirloin tips, and a selection of hand made desserts stacked on baker’s racks and spread out gloriously on white linen tables. Even their ice cream is homemade -- I actually met the woman who churns it.
This is how it was until last week, anyway -- until the government stepped in.
For weeks before our trip, my husband and I begin to fantasize about our visit to the Sterling Brunch. Having partaken of it for 10 years, we have the entire spread memorized, from the gigantic plates of exotic cheeses at the beginning of the buffet, to the crab salad, to the sushi, the large basket of crusty dill and tomato topped rolls and soups to the eggs Benedict -- the carving station with lamb, prime rib, and ham …well, you get the picture.
So, on our most recent visit, when I rounded the corner to the area the delectable cheese display has occupied for at least a decade, I found nothing. I then noticed the bread basket had disappeared, as well as the usual bowl of whipped butter -- and, almost too tragic to write about, there wasn’t a dessert in sight.
Luckily, we’d each had a glass of champagne at the table and were able to absorb the shock without crying out in despair right there in line.
When we got back to our table, sans cheeses, sans dill rolls, sans shrimp cocktail, I inquired to our waiter -- “Where the hell’s the cheese and everything?”
Not really -- after all, he’s the one who pours the champagne.
But I did politely inquire about the absence of so many of their traditional offerings.
“Oh,” he replied with a note of chagrin. “We had to remove some of them. The health department came last week -- we didn’t have the right sneeze guards.”
My husband and I shot each other a look -- that just-when-you-didn’t-think-you-could-hate-the-government-any-more-than-you-already-do look
Well, at least the champagne was still flowing. And when the dad gum gubmn’t figures out how to stop that, I’m moving to France -- and taking my tax bills with me.
Anticipating, and Reminiscing, "The Road Trip"
Ahhh, the smug satisfaction of planning a road trip. Yes, in this age of flight, with all of its conveniences and adornments -- cramped seats, overbooked flights, TSA agents who habitually steal your hairspray from your carry-on bag so you can’t build a bomb with it. Not to mention the occasional fuselage-turned-prison-on-the-tarmac with no air-conditioning and emotionally fragile emergency-slide-happy flight attendants. To you, air travel, I bid a fond adieu, as I take to the open road in my gas-guzzling GMC Yukon to participate in one of America’s grandest traditions -- The Road Trip. I don’t care if Oprah and Gayle drove a Chevy sedan on their road trip. I’d take a smaller car, but we totaled that one a few years back. I take to the road with the full knowledge that 30,000 people a year are killed on America’s highways. That’s 30,000 more than are killed on airplanes. With statistics like that, I’m thinking the closer your car is to the size of a passenger jet, the safer you are.
The last time my husband and I went on a road trip was nine years ago. It was two days after 9-11, and the first stop on our itinerary was Canada. While the US was awash in grief , we puttered through the provinces of Ontario and Quebec with heavy hearts, noting along the way, sadly, that not one American flag flew in America’s support. I had taped an American flag in my windshield before we left on our trip and was quite shocked that the citizens of our neighboring country didn’t come running up to me in droves to give me a big hug and tearfully express their sympathy for my country’s loss. Our horrific terrorist attack was never acknowledged to us in any way by Canadian citizens during the four days we spent there. However, the reports of the 9-11 attack were in all the papers, and in one lengthy newspaper article it was acknowledged that if Canada were to suffer a similar attack, it would be hard pressed to defend itself. In a diagram comparing numbers of naval ships each country had in its military arsenal, it clearly showed that the United States had many times the defense power than Canada did, and that Canada, more than likely, would be at the mercy of the United States’ goodwill to offer military defense.
My husband had warned me before our trip that the “Canucks” didn’t like Americans much. I waved him off. “Well maybe it’s because we call them “Canucks,” I said.
And then came the morning we checked out of our Inn in Quebec. We stood behind a couple who were obviously natives of Canada. The lady at the desk was chatting it up with them, giggling. “Well, we do love our queen,” she gushed. She then offered the couple a coupon for something or another. After their seemingly endless checkout, our turn came. The woman suddenly seemed to turn to ice. She hastily took our charge card, hardly looking up the entire time. And, I noticed, we got no offer of a coupon.
As we finally crossed the border into New York, waving off in the distance we spied the biggest American flag we had ever seen. Our flag never looked so good to me. We had come back home to our grieving country, from another where nobody seemed to care. It was one of the strangest and loneliest four days I had ever experienced.
And, so, these are the things you don’t experience from an airplane. You travel to learn. You learn the differences between cultures and peoples in other parts of the earth. You learn of people’s kindnesses and compassions and, conversely, the lack thereof. You learn of people’s prejudices. You don’t need anyone to tell you what a place is like after you’ve traveled there.
My windshield flag eventually faded and I took it down. Just as well. Our upcoming road trip to New England will include another trip over the Canadian border to visit Niagara Falls. God willing, we won’t be driving there with broken hearts this time.
But, I will be driving. And, oh, Canada, I’ll be close enough to terra firma to hug a Canuck!
What Really Happened Between Me And Foreigner's Lead Guitarist Mick Jones In The Elevator
It’s not everyday you find yourself on an elevator with a rock and roll legend. Particularly when the elevator is located in a town with a population 1,895 people -- a town that until just a few years ago didn’t even have an elevator.
But, there I was having a nice chat with Mick Jones, the lead guitarist and founder of the band, Foreigner, while on my way to my room on the 8th floor of the Island Resort and Casino in Harris, Michigan on a recent Friday night. He was going to the 11th floor, where I also stopped, because while fumbling for something profound to say to Mick and the muscular man with him who appeared to be his bodyguard, I forgot to press the button to my floor. I don’t know what my husband’s excuse was, but he neglected to press the button, too.
I haven’t gone to a lot of band concerts in my life. I saw Sha Na Na and Dr. Hook in the 70’s. (Anybody ever hear of them?) Because I had my first child when I was 17, I sort of missed my rock and roll groupie window. When all my friends were rocking to Foreigner, KISS and the Grateful Dead, I was rocking babies to sleep. I never had a chance to follow bands or go to concerts, and was never very good at learning and remembering which bands played what songs.
These days I frequently return to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where I spent a good part of my youth and where my children were born. A recent trip involved plans to attend a Foreigner concert at the casino.
“Great show,” I blurted to Mick after the elevator doors closed. I had recognized him from behind as we waited for the elevator because I had just seen him rocking on stage an hour earlier from the 16th row. I nudged my husband and pointed.
“Thank you, “ Mick replied in an English accent and nodded graciously. He was wearing a designer scarf and his hair was professionally done. Not something you see too often in Harris.
Three other people were on the elevator -- one woman and two young girls who were staring at their iPods. None of them apparently realized they were in the company of rock and roll royalty standing directly behind them.
While on stage Mick had commented (twice) on how treacherous the plane ride had been flying out of a New England nor’easter that morning.
“I’m glad you all made it here safe -- your plane ride sounded pretty iffy,” I said.
I didn’t hear his response to that because the woman standing behind the two young teenagers suddenly bellowed, “I HAVE TO GET OFF!” when neither of them looked up or stepped aside to let her off when the elevator stopped at the 5th floor.
“I bet you guys feel like you’re really in the boonies out here,” I said, grasping for conversation as the elevator started moving again.
“No, not really,” Mick said. “It’s actually been very nice here,” he said with a smile.
The two girls got off next at floor 6.
“Well, it was a pleasure,” I said, prematurely -- because it was then that I noticed we were sailing past the 8th floor where my room was located.
“Oh, we missed our floor!” I said.
“Oh,” Mick said. “Yes, you have to push the button,” he pointed helpfully.
My husband finally lumbered over and pushed the button for floor 8.
“It was nice meeting you,” I said to Mick and his bodyguard as they departed the elevator on the 11th floor.
“Yes, very nice meeting you, too,” he replied.
“Have a good night.”
“Thank you. You too.”
Insert sound here where Charlie Brown just got the football pulled away from him by Lucy for the zillionth time -- mwah,mwah,mwaaahhh.
D’oh! I could have said so many other things! I realize that now. And from the way Mick acted, I think he might even have been interested. I could have started with the fascinating fact that I once lived in Harris, part of the Potawatomi Indian reservation, for 8 months when I was 13. It’s a long story but it involved my mother and a torrid love affair with a guy who was supposedly on the run from the mafia and was looking for a place 10 miles off the end of the earth where he would never be found. That would be Harris. The casino didn’t exist at that time, and my older sister and I used to skip school and hide in the woods right across the street from where the casino now stands. Oh, yeah, and there was the time we ran away from home, back to Wisconsin, after only one month of living “in the sticks“ as we called it. And my sister never came back , but I did -- and that Harris was the most god-awful, loneliest place on earth to be when you’re 13 and missing your friends, your first love, and your older sister. Yep, I could have told him about the day I was walking down the railroad tracks near my house during that long winter I lived here and a train came up behind me in the distance and the snow was so deep that every time I jumped off the tracks I sunk in up to my hips. After a few panicked attempts to escape the train tracks I came upon some snowmobile tracks from a snowmobile that had ridden up to next to the railroad tracks and had packed the snow down enough to hold my weight and I was able to scamper away from the train in the nick of time. Yep, happened just over there on the other side of the highway, I would have pointed. Not to mention that the house we lived in just a half mile from here down Highway 35, burned down after we moved out and is now the location of the new Harris Fire Department.
The closest neighbor lived a half mile away. But, as I recall, during those seemingly endless months in Harris, I always had a radio. And I don’t know what even worse kind of isolated hell on earth would have enveloped me during my 13th year in Harris if not for the songs that came over that radio everyday. Many of them, I know now, were sung by you.
Yep, I could have said all that to Mick Jones. I know he would have been fascinated -- probably would have invited me up to his suite to hear more, maybe asked me if I wanted to party him and the rest of the band, or help them with some song lyrics they’ve been struggling with, and then probably get invited backstage after their next concert…
Hmm, maybe that groupie window hasn’t completely slammed shut yet.
But those elevator doors did.
Love you, Mick.
Call me.
When Flying Takes Guts - Literally
I was pretty much fed up with flying even before the crotch bomber. The final straw was when a TSA agent confiscated my hair styling mousse last month as I was getting ready to hop a flight to Florida where I would be boarding a cruise ship to Mexico.
“I’ll have to take your hairspray,” the young security agent said almost apologetically as she removed the tall silver can of Redken Guts 05 from my carry-on bag.
I couldn’t believe I had a) overlooked the item in my carry-on bag, and b) that it was the second time a TSA agent had snarfed the exact same product from me this year.
D’oh!
I know, I know -- what was I doing with a big ol’ can o’ mousse in my carry-on anyway? Especially when I’d been busted with the stuff once before and should have learned my lesson.? I guess you could say I’m still adjusting to traveling without my toiletries case now that airlines have started charging for every checked bag, and I now try to cram everything, including all of my toiletries, into my suitcase and sometimes it doesn’t all fit. So I when I’m finished packing, after I jump up and down on the suitcase a few times, I wind up removing some of the larger, last-to-go-in items that prevent the suitcase from zipping and throw them in my carry-on tote. Problem solved. Until I hit security anyway.
“That’s not hairspray,” I say, hoping that the young woman will suddenly realize that styling mousse is chemically different from hairspray and, in fact, not even a liquid. Indeed, it is mostly air and white stuff that literally disappears in your hands before you even get a chance to put it in your hair. I longed to grab the can away from her and spray a generous blob into my hand like I do every morning and show her: “See? Look…there is no way this could be used as a bomb ingredient,” I would demonstrate.
Oh, how I hate to be without my mousse. Without it, my hair is as flat and lifeless as a post crotch bomber’s sex life.
But does she care? I could see she didn’t, as she coldly disposed of my $15.95 container of glamour-in-a can into the not-so-glamorous garbage can. My dreams of standing on my stateroom balcony with my poofy hair blowing in the sea breeze vanished in the tense terminal air. Instead I envisioned posing for photographs in Cozumel wearing a sombrero balanced atop my mountain of frizzies.
Such a small thing, a container of styling mousse, but what a big difference it can make especially when you will be on a ship for a week and will have no opportunity to buy a replacement while visiting a climate with humidity in the high 200’s.
Alas, as an American who is willing to do her part to protect the safety of the flying public, I quietly surrendered my mousse without incident. After all, everyone else flying in and out of this country was no doubt subjected to the same mousse scrutiny, and therefore there would be no mousse bombs detonated and we would all arrive to our destinations safely.
If bad hair is the sacrifice I have to make so that no terrorist gets away with smuggling, let’s say, explosive powder in, let’s say, their underwear, I’ll do it.
Oh wait -- about a week after my mousse was confiscated, someone did!
If I find out the guy got to keep his styling mousse, too, I’m going to be very angry.
Indiana Wants Me, Lord I Can't Go Back There
Indiana wants me -- Lord I can’t go back there.
One of the problems with attending a Notre Dame football game, and there are few, is that if you live in Wisconsin, you have to drive through Chicago and part of Indiana to get to there. From our house in Southeast Wisconsin it’s about a 3 ½ hour drive to the Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Indiana. My husband attends every home game of the season. I usually tag along to a couple of games each year. So I can tell you in no uncertain terms that the Indiana Toll Road system has changed over the years from an efficient, user-friendly system that once housed real people in its toll booths, who actually used to smile at you and say hello, to a sluggish, inefficient, worthless pile of crap.
When I first started attending Notre Dame football games back in 1990, I was impressed with the Indiana toll booth operators who personally handed you a ticket and told you to have a nice day. It was a stark contrast between the impersonal, nay, hostile treatment you got from the Illinois toll booth operators, where the employees took your money, grunted if you were lucky, and handed you your change without even looking up. After leaving Illinois, we would cruise into Indiana where the cheerful Indiana toll booth ticket-giver/taker was the first glint of the great weekend that lay ahead -- a symbol of hope, like the first robin of spring or the first step onto the yellow brick road to the Land Of Oz.
I’m sad to report that, alas, the flying monkeys have torn the Indiana Toll Road system to shreds like a helpless scarecrow.
I don’t know what happened to the people, they’re gone. Now only empty toll booths stand guard at the on and off ramps to Highway 90, and an automated machine now spits out your ticket.
And, of course, there is no one to take your money anymore, either, when you are done using the freeway. But instead of a basket to throw your coins into, the toll road managers have opted, instead, to place a tiny slot on the side of the toll booth in which to deposit your loose change. We discovered, as we drove the toll road back to our hotel after the Notre Dame-Boston College game, that this cumbersome way of collecting money can cause quite a traffic backup of people precariously slipping one nickel after another into the coin slot, as if they were paying their entire grocery bill in change at the self service check-out at Wal-Mart.
After watching several toll-payers ahead of us clamber for change, attempt to deposit their coins one at a time, only to have several coins fall to the pavement and have to start over, we began to swear. Because we knew it didn’t have to be this way. We had seen the tollway in its glory days, pumping cars through like a conveyor belt at the U.S. Mint during a stimulus package. Now, it operated more like an outdoor self-service dry cleaner that only takes change; a dry cleaner with four pick-up windows with three of them closed.
It was late. And dark. With several cars still ahead of us digging for change in their seat cushions and traffic backing up for miles behind us, I told my husband to illegally drive through the I-Zoom lane. But because he had already inadvertently done that in Chicago earlier in the day, and once the previous weekend, he refused.
Finally it was our turn to put our handful of coins in the slot.. We could feel hundreds of eyes on us as my husband fumbled for his shekels. When we were finally finished, we noticed that the gate seemed to have a generous delay programmed into it. While I screamed at the gate to open, my husband, being a man of few words, stuck his arm out the window as far as he could and flipped the machine the bird.
“Take that!” he said, satisfied at his social commentary.
I can’t be sure, but I like to think that the Indiana toll booth cameras get hundreds of strikingly similar photos every day.
Transition From Cruise Ship To Land Excursion Not Always A Smooth One
According to Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, the word “segue” (pronounced seg-way) is defined as, “to make a transition from one thing to another thing smoothly and without interruption.” Not to be confused with “Segway” which can be defined as 1)“a futuristic, two-wheeled personal transporter device which was named after the wrong word” or 2) the scariest thing I have ever ridden in Mexico.
Actually, it was the only thing I’ve ever ridden in Mexico, if you don’t count the open-air, camouflaged Jeep that drove our Segway Excursion group of six at a high rate of speed from the ship dock in Cozumel to the Segway hangar several miles away, in the rain.
My husband and I usually have no trouble agreeing on the numerous off-ship excursion adventures offered when we take a cruise. After several cruises, though, we have learned a few things about organized tours: 1) They don’t always turn out to be exactly as described in the excursions manual. 2) Sometimes they’re not AT ALL as described in the excursions manual. 3) You should always be prepared to back out of an excursion completely if you feel you could die from it.
After perusing our travel documents for our cruise to Cozumel, my husband asked if there were any excursions I was interested in taking. After ruling out anything that required us to board a bus, ride on a boat, or squeeze ourselves into mini-submarines, pretty much all that was left was the “Segway Adventure.”
We more or less swore off bus tours after taking a “Wine and Lunch” tour of Philadelphia several years earlier in a non-air-conditioned trolley, with lunch consisting of a plastic container of hors’du hovers that you had to balance on your knee while the tour guide screamed into her microphone for an hour and a half. The wine part of the lunch never did materialize as the server ran out of wine before making his way to the back of the bus where we were sitting.
And maybe we still had a bad taste in our mouths over the Glass Bottom Party Boat excursion my husband, daughter and I took during a Christmas cruise to the Bahamas -- riding in a rickety boat with no visible life jackets for two hours and not seeing a single fish except at the end when the captain/bartender/singer/ anchored the boat and gave us all a piece of bread to throw overboard where swarms of ugly bread-eating fish appeared on cue. Not to mention the $21.00 we had to scrounge up after each of us ordered a drink that we were led to believe in our tour literature were included in the cost of the ticket. And I quote, “A complimentary rum or fruit punch is served up during the trip.”
So, I thought, what could possible go wrong riding a two-wheeled scooter?
“You have seen them on television and in print -- now it is your opportunity to experience the future and ride the most exciting human transport vehicle today, the SEGWAY,” I read aloud from the tour description to my hubby.
“When will we ever have another chance to try one?” I reasoned.
He furrowed a brow, sighed, but agreed.
Two other couples rode with us in the Jeep to the Segway tour headquarters.
After we were all seated in a small room with a T.V., a heavily accented instructor told us he would be back after we watched the 20-minute safety video.
“But if it eez steel raining outside, we will cancel the tour, no?” he assured us.
My husband’s face lit up at the prospect.
The safety video, which should have been titled, “Why You Never, EVER Want To Attempt To Ride One Of These Things” basically demonstrated 50 or so ways to become seriously injured just by lightly putting one foot on the riding platform of the two-wheeled contraption. Stunt men riding Segways demonstrated falling over head-first, careening sideways, falling down curbs, hitting bumps, falling backwards, smashing into walls and all but being run down by a semi.
Which was my husband’s growing concern.
After the video the instructor passed out full-body safety gear which included a helmet, knee pads, and elbow pads. The six of us lined up to practice mounting and riding a Segway. Getting on is the tricky part -- if you pull the handle too far towards you, you could fall over backwards. If you push it away from you, you could tip over forward. If you step on and move the handle bar forward or backward too much, you will wobble uncontrollably. And then, if you try to jump off out of fear or panic, the Segway will take off without you, and you will more than likely crash a $5,000.00 machine -- which we were strongly encouraged not to do.
We all practiced wobbling on our Segways in the parking lot for a few feet, then turning around
The rain gradually stopped while we practiced. But I couldn’t get the vision out of my mind of the demonstrator in the safety video picking up his Segway and cautiously carrying it over a puddle of water. “Do not ride on wet surfaces!” the video warned. I looked out at the road which was populated with enormous craters of water.
“Did he say we’re first going to ride across that highway?” My husband asked me aside.
Yes, I had to admit, even with the heavy accent, I heard the instructor say that in order to get to the scenic riding trail, we would all have to cross the four-lane highway on our Segways -- inevitably straight through a number of deep puddles that should have big red X’s across them like in the video.
“Do they yield to pedestrians in this country?” I whispered to my husband, who was apparently scared speechless.
“What do you say we go back to the ship and fall off a couple of barstools instead?” he finally suggested.
Suddenly he ripped his protective gear off and left in a heap on the sidewalk to the shocked looks of our fellow Segway hostages. Not the smoothest of segues, I’ll admit, but I followed. And then we ran for our lives back to the ship -- so fast not even Paul Blart would have been able to catch us.
A Gay Time Will Be Had By All On The Royal Caribbean All-Gay Cruise
Word on the street - well, actually on the ship - has it that the gays will be taking over the entire Mariner of the Seas, one of Royal Caribbean’s opulent sailing vessels, from October 18 - 24th. I found this out while having a conversation with one of the wine tenders at the champagne bar during a recent cruise on The Mariner to the Mexican Riviera.
Lately my husband and I have found that our conversation frequently turns to gays after a couple of glasses of Domaine Chandon at the champagne bar, our favorite hangout spot on Royal Caribbean’s luxury cruise liners.
“The gays have booked the entire ship,” bartender Ronny says of the upcoming cruise.
“What?!” I shriek.
“It’s called dee Atlantis cruise,” he says in his thick Indian accent.
My husband’s and my penchant for the bubbly has led us to seeking out the cruise ship’s champagne bar whenever we sail. After some research we were horrified to discover that not every ship has a champagne bar. Therefore there are some sailings we will never partake in -- unless the ship is remodeled and a champagne bar is installed.
Because our interest is mainly in tasting and comparing the numerous varietals of champagne when we belly up to the bar at precisely 4 p.m. each day, we tend not to be interested in the sexuality of those around us. Not even our own. But fate forced our hand last fall when we sailed to the Caribbean Islands on The Liberty of the Seas when, at some point during the cruise, the champagne bar became the gay bar. From the first day that Ralph sashayed into the bar to meet up with his mother, Lillian, (with whom we had struck up a conversation at the bar) after his facial, every day a few more gays showed up until by the final night of the cruise there was hardly a hetero to be found save for me, my husband and Lillian.
On our most recent cruise to Mexico, my husband recognized our bartender Ronny from our Caribbean cruise in May of ’08 on the Mariner. While catching up we told him we had sailed on the Liberty of the Seas last October. I still had photos of our trip on my camera and showed him pictures of the champagne bar bartenders, Allen and Jemma, -- they stood smiling behind the bar surrounded by “the gays,” as we had come to refer to them. Or as Ronny pronounces it, “Da gase.” In the photo Allen, who was also from India, was smiling and being a good sport even though he once remarked to us privately -- “We do not have this in India.”
“We had so much fun,” I reminisced to Ronny. On and on I waxed nostalgic about the gay couple from Cincinnati, and Ralph who brought nine bathing suits with him and packed so heavy he was forced to leave behind a bunch of clothing at the airport. And how he had left his gay partner back home and secreted away with his mother and how one night another gay guy showed up at the bar who happened to know Ralph’s boyfriend and Ralph’s ensuing dramatic and intoxicated meltdown because he was convinced the guy was going to spill the secret to his live-in sugar daddy. We became such good chums with Ralph and Lillian that on the last night of the cruise my husband and I walked Lillian back to her cabin to help her put her suitcases outside the door. Ralph was enmeshed in some drama back at the bar. He had confided in us early on in the trip that he was worried about his 80-year-old mother because she seemed to be getting forgetful. That explained why she turned to Glenn and I at least twice each and every night and asked us if this was our first cruise. The last day of our trip Ralph gave me a necklace he had purchased on the ship and, smiling, he implored coyly, “When this you see, think of me.”
I found myself missing our fun-loving gay friends as we reminisced over our fourth, (or fifth? Whose counting?) glass of Veuve Clicquot. I looked around the near-empty bar, raised my glass and bellowed, “We need more gays!”
Somehow I hadn’t noticed the two men sitting on the far side of the bar. Or if I had, I had mentally discounted them as plain old boring heterosexuals. Ronny shot me a glance and my husband whispered, “Shhhh.”
A few minutes later the men got up and left
“Were they ghhhaaaaaaaaay?” I slurred to Ronny holding my glass out for a refill.
He nodded discreetly.
I beamed. That was more like it! There’s nothing like the promise of a bar full of gays on the first day at sea. I’d give my last bottle of Dom Perignon to be there on the 18th.
