Florida October 2007 Day 1

Thursday, 10/18/07

The plan was to go into work for a couple of hours, then head home and catch a plane at 7:15 pm. Instead, I woke up, vomited, and called in sick. Good thing, too, because I both slept and recovered from whatever pissed my stomach off, and spent a little extra time packing.

We parked at the satellite lot, and I almost lost my stomach again when the bus driver nearly slammed into the back of another bus. He blamed it (over and over and over again: Methinks he doth protest too much) on the rookie driver in the other bus, but both Julie and I agree he wasn't watching the road. But, no harm no foul.

Then we discovered our 7:15 flight to Tampa was delayed to 10:15, because our plane had mechanical difficulties, and they either had to fix it or fly a new plane in. And apparently the flight after ours was delayed as well, so there was a lobby full of people who'd been in the airport for a minimum of 5 hours...Fortunately, most people seemed fairly ok with it. Post 9/11 world, I guess. I do have to commend Southwest. Once the planes arrived, they got people off and on and on their way in almost no time at all. There was maybe a half hour between the time the first plane landed, offloaded, cleaned, onloaded, and left the gate, and our plane reached the gate. Those Southwest people know how to herd cattle!

Then, when we reached Tampa (at 2 in the morning!), the poor Hertz rental girl was inundated with people. She said she thought all her flights came in at the same time! Hertz has this thing where Gold #1 card members can essentially grab the key and leave, without all the rigmarole about signing etc. The Hertz counter had two lines, one for gold card members, and one for 'normal' renters. However, with only one person at the counter, this didn't really matter, and so we were just alternating which person went up. Which worked out fine until the man after us (in the 'normal' person line) started to go up at the same time as the lady behind us in the gold card line. He said, "I'm next in line," and went up to the desk. He was kind of rude, but then again, it's two-friggin-thirty in the morning. And the woman yells after him, in a really snotty tone of voice, "Do YOU have a gold card?" As if that entitles her to firsties, never mind the guy was in line way before she was! I had half a mind to turn to her and say, "The line is feeding from both sides, and he was next," and I'm sure for the next couple of months I'll wish I had said it. The guy might have been a little curt, but that woman was an entitled beyitch, and I hate people like that!

We finally get to the hotel, a La Quinta, and there was the cutest puppy, 8 months and wouldn't leave to see us unless mommy said it was ok, and was totally obedient when it came to sit and lie down. I know 8 YEAR old HUMANS who aren't that well behaved! Then it took us forever to find the room - apparently this particular motel was designed as a maze. But we did okay...considering we were mostly asleep on our feet!