Fear and Loathing in Florida

What began as a benign trip to Florida with my Dad to take him to see his little sister quickly changed hue so I thought I was in Fear and Loathing in Cape Canaveral.

Gentle reader, I know you may already have questions as to the accuracy of my accounts, but what I am about to tell you I tell you not through the gentle haze of LSD or even microdosing (after all, I just retired last Friday and it hasn’t come to that yet). But the events of today’s travel were worthy or reporting.

Dad had already said that he was never going on an airplane again, this several months ago when the topic of my retirement party came up. Earlier today, as we navigated Dulles International Airport, Dad had a runny tally of “I’ll never fly again.” I counted 6 before we boarded the flight. Dulles is one of those airports that require you to take a shuttle bus to your gate. This coupled with the fact that he’d just recently (like within days of our trip) watched the Netflix Documentary: Downfall: The Case Against Boeing.

Mind you, as he would tell you himself, all the details were handled in the travel. I called up the Uber driver, who managed to find the house, and dropped us at the right entry at the airport. Dad hasn’t flown since maybe 2019, definitely before the pandemic, and maybe things have changed. I know we all know our way around a QR code and no longer have typed itineraries (well, I do, but then I’m a production manager). When we checked in at the kiosk and I printed out the bag tags, and dropped our bags at the counter (eliciting the 2nd “I’ll never fly again,” I asked the attendant where we could pick up the wheelchair we had ordered. We went around the corner and met the attendant who pushed Dad’s chair through the security check point, and reassembled all of our things on the other side.

I can’t leave Dad anywhere alone – he automatically makes friends. Happened about 5 times today. The wheelchair assistant, out of whom Dad managed to excavate the following facts (From Nepal, has three children, been in the states for 10 years) – all of this while I went in to the ladies room and came out again, was attentive and helpful and dropped us off at the gate at least an hour before boarding. After tipping her, she left us only after Dad assured her that he could walk to his seat in the plane.

Did we take advantage of the early boarding for those with disabilities? I’m afraid we did, and later you’ll see why I think we stretched their credulity. They gave us extra time to get down the gangway. I couldn’t keep up with Dad, as I’ve been really limping since the PT technician told me my left leg was three centimeters shorter than the right. Also there was the fact that we had what I’ve come fondly to call the traveling bag of death. My death if it ever gets lost – it is the small USC School of Dramatic Arts black tote that Simon gave me my retirement gift in. Simon, it’s no longer my bag. In it are all the things that Dad requires on this trip: extra glasses, phone charger, pills, vitamins, masks (thank you because I have apparently already forgotten this pandemic thing that made me never leave the house without a mask).

We get to the plane and walk smack dab into a jolly meeting of the captain with the flight attendants. He comes out and tells us to wait a minute before we can go in and put out all the pillows for everyone coming after us. He was charming and knowing that made the later events of the day more palatable.

By then, Dad’s mask had split at the chin and had the very odd butterfly effect of making him look like Hannibal Lecter in “Silence of the Lambs.” But nevertheless he could still make friends with anyone he spoke with.

So it’s about 12:30. We’re on the plane. I pull the airplane’s safety card out of the back of my seat only to discover that the plane is indeed a Boeing B737-Max8/9. “Oh look,” I start to say, to Dad. I text a picture of the card to my brother Don – “It’s been nice knowing you.”

I’ve given Dad the aisle seat in row 9 thinking that was a good daughter move. But he’s begun being jostled by passing passengers with bags that they don’t have a good control over. Literally every person who walks by him swings their bag into his shoulder or elbow. Dad spouts a flourishing rash of obscenities not quite quietly to prevent everyone in the immediate vicinity to hear him say “Goddamn young people can’t control their baggage.” And other fbombs that I can’t bring to put in my family-centered blog.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I have this attitude towards Dad’s outbursts that I think is in the same vein as I felt when I was a pet owner and would take my dogs out for a walk. When my dogs would growl at other dogs I felt something akin to this. It has nothing to do with the fact that I thought my dogs or Dad will physically harm anyone else, but I’m embarrassed and think he may harm himself – heart attach is what comes to mind when you see his face in a rictus of reaction.

I saw that expression multiple times today. I also saw him making pals all over the airport and he was sweet as pie to me. His anger is completely performative. But I sometimes feel like I’ve been seated at a three hour performance of August, Osage County. I found myself during that show saying, “I don’t like these people and I don’t want to spend three hours with them.” But that passed, too.

Sometime about now, I get a lovely text from my former colleague, Michele. We had talked about the Ganesh being such a powerful and positive force. I just want you to know that I carried this image with me through the rest of the day.

The plane is almost full now, mercifully because now a baby right behind us has started screaming and Dad is leaning forward, saying again, not quite under his breath, “F&#$Ing Baby!” I have to say I was feeling exactly the same way that baby was feeling and leaned over and said as much to Dad, and asked him to be grateful that the entire plane wasn’t caterwauling. That didn’t seem to help.

Then the pilot comes onto the loudspeaker and says, “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. We are being told we can’t land in Orlando due to a major weather event. We will have to sit here for updates every 30 minutes. We are going to turn of the engines and turn of the seatbelt sign and let you move around.”

We all took that news rather well, I thought. Dad settled in for a nap. I put in my earpods and listened to a few more pages of The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe. The young woman to my left was diligently working on her homework, with colored pencils and taking notes in a notebook. She had more holes than jeans on but what do I know about fashion? I was wearing jeans which now that I think of it were more stains than denim and my blue Rei jacket and was going back and forth between hot flashes and cold chills. Planes.

After an hour, the pilot came back on and told us that we still wouldn’t have an answer for another half hour. I think we waited that hour and when he said he still didn’t have news, he said we’d be returning to the gate. And so we did at about 3:30, which was our original arrival time in Florida. They gave us the choice of staying on the plane or deplaning and I said I was hungry and we should get off so we did. We went to the Pizza Hut and Dad struck up a conversation with two airport employees. He was having a ball and so were they. I was looking at my phone and at 3:33, I got a text that said we were departing at 3:41. “I’ll take that pizza to go, please!” Dad started back down to the gate, speed walking and when I arrived at the gate five minutes later with the pizza, the people next to us told us we had ten minutes before we would reboard. So we each ate a piece of the pizza before the boarding started, Dad again taking advantage of the disability and sprinting down the gangway to the plane, which had been miraculously cleared of all passengers.

This time when the plane re-boarded, Dad seemed inured to the jostling, and the baby was happy now, too. Everyone on the plane was more jovial and sure enough, we took off around 3:50PM for Orlando.

5:33 we arrived in Orlando. Wouldn’t you know that there was a wheelchair waiting and a nice young man to take us to the luggage carousel which was only a mile or two away. After gathering our bags we made our way all the way down to the Hertz counter at the farthest end of the terminal where they looked up my reservation and said, “You are Hertz Gold. You can go directly to the garage to pick out your car.” He pointed us out the door to the right and cross at the crosswalk and go to the second level. We did that, I being aware that this was a hefty walk and Dad being very gracious, saying he needed the exercise.

Hertz is the seventh circle of hell.

I went up to the counter and the woman who worked there looked tired and unappreciated. She was finishing up with another customer before me and everyone in the room was eavesdropping on the other woman who was trying to get confirmation of the car she had returned earlier that day but there was no record in the computer of her even having taken a car. It was fascinating and a little discouraging from a corporate efficiency standpoint.

“Go out to the Gold Row and pick out a car.”

“And then do I come back?”
“No, you drive away.”

So I walked outside and somehow between the desk and the dazzling array of cars, I found myself standing not in front of the Gold Row, but Row 2. There was a maroon colored Mercedes Sedan (too small for the five of us when we reunited with Dad’s sister and her husband and son) – there was a very large white SUV. No. But this smaller Maserati SUV looks really good. I opened the passenger door and told Dad to hop in. I took our bags and put them in the back and closed the back door, locking the car, at which point the alarm went off with screeching outrage.

And there’s no one in sight except my 93-year-old Dad who was on the verge of deafness before I locked him in the Maserati and turned on the alarm. Literally no one in sight.

Dad jumps out of the car and starts shouting about “Doesn’t anyone f*&#ing work here?” I look over to the left and see a young couple waiting for their car and watching my dad hop around the parking lot. They are trying not to laugh. I can see them cupping their hands around their faces and turning to face each other rather than us. I start purposefully back to the counter because of course, now our suitcases are locked in the Screaming Maserati and there is no way we can leave the Hertz Lot.

I go in and several other bemused customers look on as I tell the woman behind the counter I need help. I’ve locked my bags in the Maserati. She looked at me like I was the most remedial Gold Hertz member she’d ever seen. She then proceeded to bring out a wad of keys to try to turn off the alarm. I return to the car and try to usher Dad into the nice black Nissan in the Gold Row but he’s enjoying being out in the middle of the lot excoriating Hertz and informing anyone who will listen how they’ve screwed up the company and no one works here.

Again, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. But finally when she opens the Maserati for us and we move our luggage over to the Nissan, I think we’re on our way. I text my cousin Paul that we are leaving the Hertz Lot and will be at the Radisson in 45 minutes. I think I texted something inane like “Hijinx at Hertz.”

We drive to the exit gate of the lot and I hand my license to the attendant who tells me that I’m not authorized to take this car. By this point, even I’m about to throw a couple of fbombs but say as politely as I can, the inanity: “My 88-year-old aunt is waiting for us.” Meanwhile Dad has completely lost it and starts yelling from the passenger seat. “This company is a f&%$ing nightmare.” The young attendant says, “If you don’t calm down sir, I will have to call the manager.” I can envision Dad being hauled off to some police area behind the desk at Hertz. I wanted to say, “Good luck finding the manager!” I calmed down Dad and we drove back to the office where I left Dad in the car and went in, cutting in line (I know, I’m not proud of this) and telling her I wasn’t authorized to take the car I selected from the Gold Row.

Me: “This is the first time I’ve been a gold member of Hertz and I don’t think it’s going very well. I’m totally confused about what is happening.

Woman who hates her life: “I need the key of the car you selected. Where is it?”
Me: “It’s in the car.”

Woman who hates her life and me a little: “Go get it please.”

I run, well hobble out to the car and turn off the car and take the key back to the office, weaving my way between the couple with the baby who looks about ready to lose their shit and give her the key. Literally five minute of key tapping later, she hands me a document and the car key and I say as gracefully as I can. “I appreciate you.” Which I realize is just as insulting and patronizing as Dad was when I got into the car. He said, “We aren’t in a hurry. This is the time when you would have an accident.” It’s insulting and patronizing and of course, correct, so I breathe a couple of deep breaths before activating Siri to talk me out of the airport and onto route 528 beachline expressway to Cape Canaveral and the Radisson where finally, we met my Aunt Irene, Uncle Paul, and cousin Paul. We had a lovely dinner (they had more or less finished theirs) and off they went home and we went to check in.

In the lobby, there were three people checking in in front of us. Dad went off and made friends with a convention of Airforce Chaplains and their wives who were taking a group picture near the astronaut suit in the lobby. He asked the photographer, who was clearly one of the chaplains if he could take his picture. He threw his hat onto the floor so he could get his eye on the lens. Got a big laugh.

When he came back after five minutes or so and the same people are still checking in, he says to me, under his breath, “How long does it take to f74ing check in?”

“Dad, why don’t you have a seat and I’ll take care of it.”

I know, patronizing. Anyway, we got our keys and the desk clerk gave us a labyrinthian map to our rooms. When we finally found them after several attempts, the door of my room felt like it was going to fall off and the key card didn’t work. Dad’s did and he went in to unpack. I saw the black bag so I will live another day. I called the front desk and told him I couldn’t get into the room and they sent a tech to let me in. While I was waiting, a man from an adjacent hallway came out of that door and I swear his member was hanging out of his pants. At this point in the day, though I’m still sober as a judge, I wouldn’t be surprised if I imagined it. It was a wild day.

Anyway, that was Day 1 of the Trip with Dad. Hopefully things will calm down now. I may never fly again.