April 15, 2005 - 4:01 PM

Two Weddings and a Pimp Party, Episode I: Escape from L.A.

My cousin Carol has rules. Do not fly on a weekend. Do not fly during periods when the general public usually has holidays or vacation time. And whatever you do, do not feed them after midnight. Abiding by these rules allows her to travel whenever she wants, wherever she wants, with little to no hassle(hoff). She's been to the East Coast, Mexico, Southeast Asia, and Europe in the past year. These are the perks of her working for an airline.

So, was it any surprise that we had trouble up the wazoo when we flew out the Thursday night/Friday morning of Easter Weekend to Florida during Spring Break for our cousin Jimmy's wedding? The fates were playing with us, toying with our minds. Me being the planning slob that I am, I had no idea what the deal was with anything involving the weekend. I didn't know that it was originally a Black-Tie affair, later knocked back to Black-Tie optional (which apparently means you still have to wear a suit) until two weeks before the wedding. There is no need for suits in my life. There hasn't been for a LOOOONG time, so I ended up borrowing one of Tony's, which surprisingly fit like a glove.

Also not anywhere close to my radar were the specifics of where the wedding was (The Biltmore Hotel in Miami), where everyone was staying (most were at one hotel near the airport), where I was staying (a different hotel with my parents and Phil and Jen), what activities were planned, and what my travel plans were. There was vague talk over New Year's in Vegas that Carol could fly me out as a companion with her to Miami, so I didn't bother trying to book any flights. And then she had her work schedule switched so she wasn't sure if she could have the proper days off to make the wedding. A week before the big day, she was able to assure us that she could make it, but that's when things got really confusing.

Carol and her immediate family can fly standby for free. As long as seats are available, she gets priority. She can also procure tickets for friends and family at a hefty discount. The exact details of whe she was trying to do for me are still a little sketchy, but our first plan was to have me fly from L.A. to Vegas, meet up with her at McCarren, and then fly with her to Miami on the redeye. She began to see that all flights on her airline for both legs were booked beyond capacity, which meant my chances of flying standy were close to nil. Thoughts of having her fly out to L.A. to accompany me back to Vegas (she would have had first pick if anyone dropped out of the shuttles) were nixed when no flights were found that worked within our time constraints. She decided to instead fly out here, in order to DRIVE back with me to Vegas to meet a redeye for Florida. Because she's crazy.

Luckily, I was able to snag a one-way flight to Vegas for $100 on Thursday morning, which meant she could focus her concerns on how we were going to get to Miami. Yes, unsurprisingly, all the flights from Vegas to Miami were full. Carol thought we'd have a better chance trying to fly in to Orlando, then hopping some other airline into Miami; on the way out, we'd fly from Miami to Tampa, and then Tampa to Phoenix or Vegas. Stop scratching your head and pay attention. Somewhere around Kansas City, I stopped worrying, consigning myself to the fact that we weren't going to make it out of our time zone, much less to Florida. If Carol was able to work her magic to make it happen, then bravo, but if not, then no big deal. The optimist in me did purchase intra-Florida shuttle flights on the off-chance that we were able to get there. The optimist in me doesn't have a good memory nor does he pay attention (which probably explains why he's an optimist), so I ended up with tickets from Orlando to Ft. Lauderdale, and Ft. Lauderdale to Tampa.

Geographical fortune places Ft. Lauderdale 30 minutes from Miami. I didn't know this until AFTER I booked the flights; I just had vague recollections of some people talking about Ft. Lauderdale in their travle plans for the wedding, so it seemed to be a good choice. Matt and Sharon, who went down to Florida earlier in the week, were nice enough to agree to pick me up at the Fort Lauderdale airport on Friday morning, so that was working out perfectly. Everything was falling into place. Everything except for the part where Carol and I get ourselves across the country.

I worked a half day on Thursday (most of it was spent booking my bookend flights), then had Nick and LDBL drop me off at the airport. When I got to Vegas, Carol was unhappy. Prospects were not looking good. We had to make a choice: try for standby on the Vegas/Miami flight at 10:45 or try for standby on Vegas/Tampa at 11 PM. If we missed the Miami one, we wouldn't have time to get to the Tampa gate. Carol made an executive decision, that we would go for broke with Miami, and so we hustled to the gate, ready to kill passengers if we had to to open up space. It turns out Margaret was on that flight, so we waited with her, and Carol periodically talked to the gate attendants (with whom she's friends) about what passengers had checked in and who hadn't. Boarding began, and we waited. It looked like a few people weren't checked in and a handful of others who were connecting through Vegas hadn't arrived yet. 2 people were ahead of us on the standby list, and they were allowed on, leaving one unclaimed seat. Carol urged me to take it, saying that she would be able to find another flight out in the morning. 5 minutes before the closing of the gate, I was sitting next to Margaret in row 8. 2 minutes before gate closure, Carol ambled on, all smiles, and plunked herself down next to me. It turns out that her friends at the gate closed the gate early to let her on, shutting out whatever straggling connecting fliers might claim their seats away from her (we never did find out if those people were just dawdling around the airport, or if their incoming flights had been seriously delayed). Onward and upward to Miami! Yes the fates had played us like chumps. Actually, they weren't so much playing with us as they were poking us in the eyeballs with jabby sticks. Fucking fates.

Now Listening To : Angela Correa-Correatown
Random Thought : Stay tuned for part two of a continuing series....

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