It’s no
secret that Dan loves to drive. Anywhere and everywhere, Philadelphia, New
Orleans, Los Angeles and even Texarkana Texas, for a Saturday lunch at Bryce’s
cafeteria! (Lamb stew and pecan pie--I kid you not). I’m not so enamored of
long-distance drives. My legs get jumpy, I get irritable and I’m not a big fan
of Dan’s books on tape (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the Harry Potter
series being notable exceptions). Bottom line, it’s the 21st
century, give me a plane ticket and I'm good to go.
Dan’s quite
vocal that he always prefers to drive anywhere he can get in less than 22
hours. Our latest adventure to Cozumel requires an airplane because it
(happily) crosses over Dan’s 22-hour rule and also includes a ferry, because--island!
I manage the booking, through Funjet vacations, because they'll let us depart from Milwaukee. Our outbound trip was uneventful and reinforced my superior
view that air travel is the best travel. Of course, superior travel views must
be crushed by reality and our return trip was anything but uneventful.
I need to
back up a few days into the vacation. I had some kind of something brewing. Dan
and I had four dives over two days, and took a surface day on Tuesday.
Wednesday I woke up with sinus congestion and a sore throat. Never dive with
congestion as it’s extremely difficult to equalize and if you are able to reach
max depth you can really hurt yourself on the ascent. No worries though, in a
dive community strong decongestants are not hard to find – it’s a diver’s
heroin. We missed three dives on Wednesday, including our night dive. But after
24+ hours of self-medicating we were back on the dive boat Thursday afternoon
for two more great underwater adventures.
On decompression day Friday the congestion returned to my chest, along with a
nasty cough. We had planned a trip to Tulum, followed by a stop over in
Playa del Carmen to visit an old friend. In Playa, we stopped at a pharmacy,
and were surrounded by shelves full of medical miracles. I’m sure I could have
purchased all sorts of narcotics or sedatives or (the mind reels) stuff that would
have had some street value in the US. Geez, at the very least cough syrup with
codeine. I spoke with the pharmacist, some 16-year-old, and described my
symptoms. I was given a magic elixir and money changed hands. Dan was also
perusing the shelves and noticed those magic blue pills that require a
prescription in the States. He’s tried them, on rare occasions in the past, and
I will admit it does take things to 11 (Spinal Tap reference—look it up.) Those
went in the bag as well.
I stepped
outside and was encouraged by Dan to take a big swallow – blessed relief on the
way – only to discover I had been sold what tasted suspiciously like what every
mom knows is Dimetapp. I've never felt so ripped off. By Saturday, I was done
in with an uncontrollable cough, anxious to head home and first world medicine.
The first
flight from Cozumel back to the states went as expected and we landed in
Charlotte early. Our connecting flight was marked as delayed, so we stopped for
dinner. When we returned to the gate we found that the flight was cancelled.
Over at customer service we got a hotel voucher and were scheduled on the 5:30am flight to O’Hare, so now we had two flights instead of one. I coughed
maniacally all night long, logged about 45 minutes of sleep, keeping Dan awake
as well. We left for the airport at 4am and made the first flight.
Landing at
O’Hare we were directed to the connecting gate for Milwaukee. “Everyone going
to Milwaukee on this flight goes to G3!” we were told three times as we landed.
We sat at G3 for about 90-minutes waiting to board. When I handed my pass over
to the gate agent, it was rejected. The agent then said we were “not on a US Airways flight, we were on
United.” What? How would we know that? “Look
at the code,” she said. “What?” I burst into tears and she happily pointed
to the exit and the United terminal. She said to Dan “This happens all the time.” Feel the love.
Dan took off
in a sprint and I did my best to keep up, stopping along to way to hack out
pieces of lung. As I rounded the corner of the United terminal I realized I had
lost Dan in the crowd, which only exacerbated my overall sick-feeling. Ready to
just sit down and give up, I heard my name from a gate and saw Dan waving me
down. He was already negotiating with a gate agent to get us on a new flight,
any flight, which would get me home. He had deployed the “sick and weeping
wife” defense in hopes of avoiding another trip to customer service.
(This is from Dan: I push past a bunch of people to get to the front of
the line, asking what gate our flight is at—it’s not on the boarding pass. “That flight left 10 minutes ago.” Where
does this boarding pass with the full color American Airlines logo indicate
it’s a United flight? “It’s the “U” in
this line of code right here—you will need to go down to Customer Service to
get this straightened out.” I look up to see my coughing, sobbing zombie
wife shuffling down the aisle. I yell her name at full volume twice before she
sees me. She starts shuffling in my direction. I turn back to the clerk. “In a
moment you will have a very sick, sobbing woman standing here. How do we get on
a plane to Milwaukee now? “Sir, as I said
you will need to do downstairs to Customer Service.” In my former Customer
Service days I hated when people did shit like this to me, but in my lowest,
quietest my-wife-is-sick-and-I'm-done-dicking-with-airplane-people I hissed, “and where the fuck is customer service?” We stared at each
other and she started typing. We had two boarding passes for a flight leaving
for Milwaukee in 30 minutes in my hand before Paula reached the counter. End of
Dan comment.) It worked;
we were on a new flight within 30-minutes and home within 90. I love my knight
in shining armor.
We figured
our luggage would be waiting for us, having already arrived on an earlier
flight. We were half right as one of two bags had been set-aside by the United
baggage service. The United luggage attendant was super. Sizing up the
situation she apologized for all of American’s failings and hustled us over to
the US Airways baggage area. Looking it up in their system, our bag was safely
sitting in Chicago in a US Airways terminal.
“And what
was in the bag?” she asked as she typed up a claim form. About $1000 in dive
gear, my tripod, most of our underwear, the souvenirs we bought and the keys we
need to get into the house if we ever get home. “There’s a two year supply of
happy pills in there,” Dan whispered in my ear. I think it was the first time I
smiled in 24 hours.
The bag
arrived home two days later—safe and sound. I know this is just a collection of
first world problems, but when you're tired and sick, all you want to do is get
home.
In summary,
departure time from our hotel in Cozumel – 2PM CT on May 30. Arrival time at
our home in Wauwatosa? 10:30AM CT on May 31 = 20 ½ hours, still beats the
22-hour rule, so what am I complaining about? And while we were on vacation, we
investigated a new spot for retirement—Playa del Carmel on the mainland across
from Cozumel. Affordable, colorful, and lots of fun. 85 and sunny almost every
day. Close to a beach and close to diving. And you don’t need a prescription
for any of that…either.
Music that resonates:
Driving all Night - The Tubes
