How Was Your Weekend?

So many of you took the time to send me notes or leave comments regarding my absence on Monday that I felt I should tell you about what led up to the events of Monday. Hey, it's only fair. Well, seeing as I had no plans for Valentine's Day. Yes, I know. I can hear all of your violins playing now. I decided that I would take the opportunity to go see a hockey game or two. Over the past year I have become a serious hockey fan. But basically my devotion is to the Washington Capitals. Well when I looked at their schedule I saw they were going to be in Florida for the weekend and really, what is better than some warm sunshine, spring training and some hockey?

My parents were so overjoyed that I was going to be gone all weekend they even offered to buy my ticket. Who could turn that offer down? So, off I went to Tampa and then down to Miami. Oh, the weekend started off well enough. I took an overnight flight Friday to Tampa. After several drinks in the bar at the airport and many, many more on the plane I managed to numb myself and get some semblance of sleep on the plane.

A breakfast of McDonald's and Bloody Mary's managed to get me through the morning hours, but made me less motivated to actually get out and watch any baseball. I mean a hotel room and cable and drinks was enough for me. Saturday night I went to see my beloved Capitals kick the crap out of Tampa Bay and made some friends with another group of people that were also planning on driving down to Miami to see the Capitals play again on Sunday. After a few bottles of booze after the game everyone thought it would be a great idea for all of us to go together. What that meant for me of course is that I figured out a way to let someone do the driving while I concentrated on eating and drinking and not sweating too much in the back of a van loaded with people heading to Miami.

Driving through the night was actually a lot of fun and there was time in Miami for me to see the ocean and to awe the people of South Florida with my back hair. Aaah. Good times. Well, the game started at 5pm. I knew I was going to have to leave the game at the end of the second period because my flight left at 835p and I needed to be on that flight. Well, I left the game in what I thought was plenty of time but my judgment may have been a bit impaired. Also, the fact that my taxi driver seemed to enjoy going well under the speed limit got me to the airport only 30 minutes before my flight. I then got a little lost in the airport but managed to show up at the ticket counter about 20 minutes before my flight. I made it right? Wrong. "I'm sorry sir, but the flight is closed." Ummm. I begged. I pleaded. I offered to share my flask. Nothing worked. The only thing I could do was to wait until the next morning for a flight. There were no other flights going to LA. I was stuck.

Now, instead of complaining about it, I decided to instead spend time visiting many of the fine drinking establishments in Miami International Airport and even managed to bribe a worker at one of the Duty Free stores there to sell me a bottle of booze to get me through a night of sleeping on the floor. I had decided early on that I was not going to risk missing my flight by staying in a hotel and sleeping through a wake up call. I decided to instead sleep right there on the floor of the airport because I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. After about 11pm there was absolutely nothing to do so I literally sat on the floor and kept pouring drinks from the bottle of booze into my little paper coffee cup. Before you knew it, the bottle was empty and I was incredibly drunk.

I did doze a little through the night but it seemed the cleaners who work at night really enjoyed making as much noise as possible when they got close to me and so I finally gave up all pretenses of sleeping at around 4am and waited for the ticket counter to open up. They opened up, I got my seat and I realized at that point that I desperately needed sleep and a shower and some clothes. I managed to log on to a computer at the airport and sent the message about posting in the afternoon thinking I might be able to recover by the afternoon.

Well after a 5.5 hour flight and no sleep for two days and no showering I decided the only thing I was going to do was sleep. And sleep I did. The futon in the basement never felt so comfortable. So, in the future I promise to take my laptop whenever I travel so that way you don't have to worry. I wanted to post, but I just couldn't manage it.