The Plight of the Pale - My Weekend in Fort Lauderdale, Part 1

THE BEGINNING

It all started as an impulsive purchase at work. It was February in Pittsburgh, so naturally we were all hunkering down for what was likely the fifth snowmageddon we were experiencing this winter. 

"Frick it," I said, and dug around my wallet in search of my credit card, lost among a sea of Taco Bell receipts. 

Hunched over my keyboard and smiling like a maniac, I clicked "confirm" and booked my weekend trip to Fort Lauderdale. Nine girls. Three days. One house. What could go wrong?

PRE-VACATION PREPARATIONS

My weekend vacation was a mere month away and there was so much to do. I needed to buy a bathing suit. I needed to plan out all of the exercising I was never going to do. I needed to prepare and adhere to specific meal plans only to abandon them for 25 cent Wing Nights.  

The night before the trip snuck up on me quickly. I went to Target to gather the remaining essentials with my friend and travel companion, Nicole. 

Chapstick, hand sanitizer, rolaids. Hand me the fanny pack and give me the keys to the mini van.

Nicole bought one of those floppy, white hats to wear on the beach. A classy choice, something you would see Audrey Hepburn or Faye Dunaway wearing. When I showed her MY hat of choice she grimaced and made me put it back on the rack. I'll never forgive her. 

  

Oh say can you see...

FLIGHT TO FLORIDA

I sat at the gate nervously tapping my foot as I always do before flying. I decided that 5 minutes before departure was the perfect time to go to the bathroom. It was there that I discovered I had a hole in the crotch of my yoga pants.

I always choose an aisle seat when flying so that I'm never fully squished next to someone. I found my seat next to a an older gentleman who had his eyes closed. Hoping he wasn't dead, I thrust myself into my seat and with a spell of grumbles and other gargling noises he woke up, eyed me up and down, shifted in his seat, and went back to sleep. Not dead - we were off to a good start. At some point during the flight, the older gentleman decided to questionably use my leg as an arm rest. Was he really sleeping? We'll never know. 

A flight attendant asked me what I wanted to drink. I ordered a Ginger Ale to settle my stomach and also because I am an old person. She came back with a FULL can of soda. Hoping it wasn't a joke, I held onto the can in case she tried to take it back. Not long after that, she returned with a "snack basket" filled with cookies, chips, pretzels, etc. I assumed the snacks were for purchase only, but to my surprise (and very much to my delight) they were free. Naturally I asked for a bag of Doritos. Then something truly bizarre happened. 

She handed me TWO bags of Doritos. Confused, I looked at her to confirm that they were both for me. With my messy bun and crotch-hole pants, I probably looked like a poor Oliver Twist seeing food for the first time. 

Are U 4 realz???

That's when I knew - something had to be wrong with the plane. We weren't going to make it and she was trying to make us all comfortable before we plummeted to our deaths. Things like this don't happen in real life. Maybe in first class they do, but we were Coach and therefore our lives were meaningless. This was just like in Titanic when the orchestra started playing music for the passengers to calm them before the ship snapped in half and everyone drowned.

I waited and waited but nothing happened. The engines didn't fail. We didn't run out of fuel. No colonial women showed up churning butter on the wings of the plane. We landed safely and I made my way to the closest airport bar to release some tension and wait for Nicole to land.

The bartender had just delivered my second Bloody Mary when Nicole called to tell me she had landed and was waiting for me. Staring longingly at my morning cocktail, I knew I had to meet my friend and decided to finish my drink as fast as possible. Travelers gawked at me as I chugged 16oz worth of tomato juice with chunks of horseradish and other spices, pausing only intermittently to bare my teeth and hiss like an angry raccoon when the spices started to burn my throat. It was a real spectacle and I am positive that one of the onlookers reported me to airport authorities for suspicious activity. 

If you SEE something, SAY something.

Like the amazing and offensive champion that I am, I finished my drink and found Nicole. Our friend and hostess for the weekend, Kathleen, picked us up from the airport and we made our way back to her house on the Marina to begin our vacation, or what would later be known as "The Weekend of Self Destruction." 

Stay Tuned for Part 2 of The Plight of the Pale - My Weekend in Fort Lauderdale.