My wife and I flew to Florida this past weekend for my Dad’s 80th birthday party. My father is amazingly active for his age. He has had a few more aches and pains lately but I cannot say much. I was the one hobbling around the beaches of the Sunshine State on my bum leg encased in a big fancy boot.
I had been looking forward to the trip to see my family for months but when I recently tore a couple of tendons in my leg I started to dread the flight to get there. I find sitting in a plane seat on par with pouring lemon juice into an open cut or getting root canal without Novocain. At my height there is never enough legroom, at my width (i.e. my extra poundage… damn those beers and burgers!) the seats are too tight and because of my long torso (look at me sometime, I’m all friggin torso. If I were the Black Knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail yelling “none shall pass”, I would still be over 6 foot tall after King Arthur hacked off my legs and arms) the seats hurt my back within minutes of sitting down. I figured the boot would just make things worse.
Getting through security was a little more difficult then usual. Not because I had to be individually screened but because the TSA agent that searched me was about the friendliest one I have ever dealt with. Too friendly. Scary friendly. He just kept talking to me. He asked how I hurt my leg but before I could answer he started telling me bad jokes that involved the punch line ‘she beat you like a red-headed stepchild’.
The TSA guy told a ‘she beat you like a red-headed stepchild’ joke as he tested for explosive residue on my boot and hands. He continued with another ‘she beat you like a red-headed stepchild’ joke as I gathered my belongings. He told yet another ‘she beat you like a red-headed stepchild’ joke as I sat and put my other shoe and watch back on. Then he followed my wife and I as I hobbled into the terminal to tell us a fourth ‘she beat you like a red-headed stepchild’ joke. Eventually he wished us a happy flight but I kept thinking he would follow me on the plane to tell me another one.
We wandered down the hall looking over our shoulders in case the ‘she beat you like a red-headed stepchild’ TSA agent was following us, as we went in search of a quick overpriced airport snack before the flight. Next to us in the food line was a couple easily in their 70s. They had a great banter with each other like they had been together forever but after we let them in front of us they excitedly told us that they were newlyweds. We joined in their joking about the bad menu selections. I kidded around about my messed up leg and he trumped me by wisecracking about his hip replacement surgeries. My wife and I left smiling hoping that we will be that happy at their age.
By the time we finished our frightening airport treats it was time to board the plane. We barely had time to make fun of the freakishly bent fingers on the woman with the laptop (her long fingers bent backwards at least an inch at the knuckle and then crimped back down forward at a 150 degree angle over her keyboard, think of a disjointed bent up skeleton hand), grumpy hissy fit ‘demanding an upgrade’ boy (he was really unhappy he had to sit in the back with us riff-raff) and oddly accented ‘18 hour long drive to the airport couple’ (that acted as if they were being tailed by an Amazing Race film crew).
The plane was overbooked and the folks abusing the carryon rules were franticly fighting over the last remaining tiny gaps of open space in the overhead bins. I smiled at one of the flight attendants and she decided to adopt us and dubbed my wife and I as the only ones on the plane that were on her side. She kept coming over to tell us stories about other ‘rude’ and ‘stupid’ passengers like the guy that finished ‘playing on his computer’ and now wanted her to carry his bag up and down the aisle to find a storage spot. She did not tell him but she told us where she thought he should stow it.
We knew we would have a wacky time at my family get-together. There are a few interesting characters in my family (myself included) but I never expected to meet so many new ones just getting to Florida. I just hated that I had to hop around the State looking as if I had been beaten like a red-headed stepchild.
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