Tuesday After waking up at some ungodly hour (5 am) in the morning, showering, wandering around to be sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, and waiting for Fred to be ready to go, we left the house at about 6:15. We were at the airport only a few minutes later, and Fred dropped me off at the door, kissed and hugged me goodbye, and was on his way. Don’t email him and tell him what a horrible husband he is – there’s no reason he needed to come in with me, since he couldn’t go past security to the gate. The line at security was long and winding, so I pulled out my book and started reading. It moved slowly, but I eventually made my way to the front, went through the metal detector, and was patiently waiting for my purse to come through the x-ray machine, when I was tapped on the shoulder. That’s right. Wanded again. The flight from Huntsville to Cincinnati was fine, everything was on time, and I had plenty of time to stop and grab a Diet Coke and a danish while I was walking from one gate to another. The plane from Cincinnati was packed, but the most astounding thing happened when I was looking for my seat on that plane. Y’see, I was in seat 17C, which is on the aisle. I walked to row 17, and saw that a woman in a suit was sitting in my seat – 17C – turned sideways and talking to a boy in the window seat. I tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” I said politely. “I think you’re sitting in my seat.” She turned around, looked me over, and carelessly said “Yeah, I’m talking to him about where he wants to sit.” AND THEN SHE TURNED BACK AROUND AND KEPT TALKING TO HIM. I looked at the woman standing behind me, waiting to get by, and we rolled our eyes at each other. What I really WANTED to do was say “Well, talk to him all you want, but GET YOUR FUCKING ASS OUT OF MY SEAT, YOU FUCKING BITCH.” But I did not. I also wanted to say, loudly, to the people standing impatiently trying to get by me, “I’m so sorry, folks. This BITCH is sitting in MY seat, discussing with a 10 year-old boy where he wants to sit. I’ll tell you this – HE AIN’T SITTING IN MY FUCKING SEAT!” Again, I didn’t. After three or four minutes of standing and waiting, it was decided where the child wanted to sit, and he slid over into the middle seat, and the BITCH moved around him to sit in the window seat, and finally my seat was free. I had assumed that the woman and the child were together, but I soon found out through some subtle eavesdropping that the child was traveling from San Diego to Maine by himself. And he’d been assigned the window seat, and THE BITCH TALKED HIM INTO SWITCHING SEATS WITH HER. What a fucking bitch. Can you tell I’d like to go back through time and grab her by the neck? Bitch. And I’m not saying “bitch” in a good way, either. Anyway, the flight from Cincinnati was eternal, with a fidgety, annoying 10 year-old boy sitting next to me, constantly leaning over to tell me what page I was reading, and also constantly needing to get up to go to the bathroom or ask a flight attendant for another Coke. But eventually we got there, obviously, and I didn’t see my father or the spud or Brian anywhere, so I thought perhaps they were waiting for me at baggage claim. I was halfway down the escalator when I heard Brian yell “Auntie Robyn!”, and looked over to see him and the spud halfway up the stairs. They met me at the bottom of the escalator, and told me that my father hadn’t been able to find a parking space, so he had let the kids off to find me, and was circling. We waited for my luggage, me trying to explain that there was no way in hell they wouldn’t see the bright yellow duffle bag with “Robyn” on the side of it (I got it at LL Bean’s for the 3-Day last year, and it looks just like this, only with my name on it. And it has wheels! Very convenient, but if you fill it full, it tends to be very heavy, as well). Anyway, we got my bag and found my dad, and hit TGI Friday’s for lunch. When we got to my parents’ house, my mother was in the pool, and so I unpacked and went down to the pool, where I got in for about ten seconds, declared it too cold, and got back out. Debbie showed up a while later and yelled at me for bringing the heat with me. The entire time I was in Maine, everyone kept whining about the heat and humidity, and I have to say that they’re out of their freakin’ minds. It was pleasantly warm, but NOTHING like the sweltering heat we had in Florida, or even like the heat we have here in Alabama, so I think they’re all just a bunch of wimps. Wednesday We (my mother, the spud, Brian, Debbie and I) got going fairly early on Wednesday morning, and headed to Boothbay Harbor. Boothbay Harbor, for those of you who don’t know, is a fairly small, isolated fishing village with lots of little shops and restaurants. You can shop and look at the ocean! Does it get any better? As we walked into town from where we’d parked (we parked in a 2-hour parking spot, but went way over the 2 hours, and still didn’t get a ticket. Yay!), I said that I needed to find postcards, and preferably the cheapest ones possible – not that I don’t think y’all are worth the expensive postcards, but I had 115 to send out, and money doesn’t grow on trees, y’know. The first shop we stopped in had postcards for 20 cents each, or 8 for $1.49. I made a mental note of that, and decided that if we didn’t find them cheaper elsewhere, I’d stop on our way back to the car and buy what I needed. There were some shops with seriously cute stuff, and we had a good time shopping. We stopped for lunch at The Fisherman’s Wharf, wherein I had the crab chowder and a cheeseburger. In fact, except for my mother, we all had cheeseburgers, and when the young, nervous waiter picked Debbie’s cheeseburger and fries up, the plate slipped, and all her food went all over the floor. Naturally, he reacted by saying “Shit!”, and then spend ten minutes apologizing for it, poor kid. He put a rush order on a new cheeseburger for Debbie and then took it off the bill, so we were happy all around. On the way out of the restaurant, we passed a little booth with information about the whale-watching tours, and Debbie grabbed me a handful of postcards, so those of you who got the postcard with the ship on the cover? It was stolen merchandise. Actually, not really STOLEN, because they don’t charge for those postcards, but they also probably don’t intend for people to yank up a handful at a time, either. Anyway, with 20 postcards in my purse, I needed to buy only 100, instead of 115. After lunch, there was more shopping, a stop for ice cream, and yet more shopping. I desperately wanted to get Fred a t-shirt that said “Boothbay Harbor – a drinking village with a fishing problem”, but I was NOT spending twenty bucks on a t-shirt. All the postcards we saw were more expensive than the 20-cent ones I’d seen in the first store, so on our way back to the car, we stopped at that store so I could buy the ones I needed. I bought them (and the guy working the register looked at me like I was a total freak for buying so many of them), and then we decided to stop in the store next door before heading to the car. Wouldn’t you know it? We walked in the door and found postcards for TEN CENTS EACH, damnit. Obviously, the work of the Karmic Boomerang, set off when Debbie grabbed those free postcards. I don’t recall what we did for dinner Wednesday night, but I’m sure it was mighty damn good. Thursday There wasn’t much to Thursday – we (my mother, the spud, Brian and I) spent several hours in the morning at my grandmother’s house, then took her to her hair appointment (which she has every Thursday at 1:30). While she was there – it takes about an hour – we skipped over to the little mall at Cook’s Corner in Brunswick and visited TJ Maxx. I was looking around, when Brian came over to me. He was holding a football jersey. “Look, Auntie Robyn!” he said, excitedly. “It’s a football jersey! All I’ve ever wanted my entire life is a football jersey!” “Oh yeah?” I said, still looking through the shirts. He went to show my mother, and three minutes later was back at my side. “Look, Auntie Robyn!” he said, excitedly. “It’s a white tank top! All I’ve ever wanted my entire life is a tanktop! I’ve been looking for one JUST like this!” “That looks like something PaPa would wear,” I said (the kids call my father PaPa). He went to show my mother his find, and was soon back at my side. “Look, Auntie Robyn!” he said, excitedly. “It’s a Tar Heels cap! All I’ve ever wanted was a Tar Heels cap!” After several renditions of this particular song, I said “Brian, pick out one thing you want more than anything, and I’ll buy it for you.” He came back with the white tank top. As my mother and I were about to check out, I sent the kids out to the car to start it and crank the air conditioning, and then I ran over and snagged the Tar Heels cap for him, too. He was happily surprised. That evening, we had chinese food for dinner – a buffet – and it was mighty fine, especially the crab rangoon. Okay, this is getting long. To be continued tomorrow…]]>
2002-08-11
