Change In Plans

Greetings from New York, New York.

The rest of my scheduled time in Destin, Florida (i.e., Sunday) was fun but uneventful.  We spent a lot of time on the beach, went on the water on stand-up paddle boards, had a classic fish-shack dinner.  The kids went from swimming in the pool to swimming in the ocean to swimming in the pool to going back in the ocean.  It was fun for me to see so many Southerners at play: wearing lots of gear with SEC football team logos, drinking Lite beer on the beach, driving huge pickup trucks.

India and I went for a late-morning run, keeping up my long-standing birthday tradition of pushing some type of workout to the point of great discomfort.  It was brutally hot and humid by 9am, truly mad dogs and Englishman weather.  It was a wonderful birthday, and a blessing to be with my family.

Everyone else was staying for the whole week, but I had to go back to work.  On Sunday night, Zola got very upset with me, saying, “Uncle JJ and Uncle D are staying all week and missing work.  I hate your job, I wish we could have traveled forever.  I hope you miss your flight.”  He was tired and sunburnt, and that probably made his reaction more extreme.  Still, it is hard to say goodbye to your kid when he is crying.

On Monday morning, I left the house long before sunrise, to catch a 6:05 flight back to New York.  The “Fort Walton - Destin Airport” was only about ten minutes from our rented house, so I arrived there in plenty of time to check in and board.  The only problem was that I had gone to the wrong airport.  The “Fort Walton Airport” was about 25 miles further west and inland.  Who knew?

Driving our rented convertible fast in the pre-dawn darkness, I thought I had a shot at making the flight.  When I arrived at the second airport, I ran through the terminal.  The Hertz desk was not staffed so early in the morning, so I clipped the car keys to the rental contract, and tossed them behind the counter and out of sight.  Then I ran to the USAir check in.

I had missed the check-in deadline by only a few minutes, but there was no one behind the counter any longer.  They were probably down at the gate.  Delta had three flights that morning, but all were sold out, and they couldn’t help me.  Defeated, I decided to stay an extra day in Florida, and take the same USAir flight on Tuesday morning.  The next problem became how to get back to the beach house in Destin.

At this hour, the airport had very few staff (no one at Hertz, Avis, USAir, the help desk, etc.) but it did have a lot of armed police officers walking around.  I thought about asking one of them for help in retrieving the car keys from behind the counter at Hertz, but realized that was probably a bad idea.

Instead, I stood at the Hertz counter, and watched one of the officers walk down the hall towards me from about 50 meters away.  He turned around to walk the other way.  Hoping that there was no video surveillance, I leaped over the counter, and dropped to the floor behind the desk.  I picked up the keys and the rental contract, and peeked down the hallway again.  The officer was facing me again, so I waited.  When he turned away, I stepped on the desk (thank goodness it did not break), and leaped back over the counter and into the terminal.

Five minutes later I was back in the convertible (which I had technically never returned), and driving back toward Destin with the top down.  I called Hertz and explained that I would be returning the car a day later than planned. 

I got back to the house at about 7am, and surprised everyone in the living room.  Zola said, “I can’t believe it!  We all prayed that you would miss your flight, and it happened.  Our prayers were answered.” 

In the end, of course, it was fine to miss another day.  We did the same things we had done on Sunday: played on the beach, swam, went for a run, went out on the stand-up paddle boards.  It was like a snow day, but with sunscreen and lots of Southern accents.  I somehow got sunburn on top of my sunburn.

On Tuesday morning I got up much earlier.  When he heard me get up, Zola sneaked downstairs and sat in the car.  He refused to move until it got so late that I missed my flight again.  It was very sweet of him, and made me feel terrible. Eventually, I got him back to bed, and left for the (correct) airport.

About two miles from my destination, a police car pulled me over.  I was very scared that somehow my key-retrieval antics of the previous day would lead to an arrest for grand theft auto.  The officer started with the classic leading question, “Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?”

Thankfully I did not say, “Because Hertz reported this rental car stolen?”  He told me that I was driving 48 in a 30 zone.  I explained that I was late for a flight, I didn’t know the area, hadn’t seen the sign.  After he ran my license, and assured himself that I was sober, he let me go with a friendly warning.

Too much drama for a simple trip.  Still, I made the flight, got stuck for several hours in Charlotte, and got back to New York by mid-afternoon.