Day One: September 18
Mama had wanted to take a plantation tour in Louisiana; my youngest sister, Becca, happened to have a work conference in New Orleans this year, so we planned a trip around that. That way we could stay in Becca’s hotel and be based in NOLA while we explored the plantations as well as the city.
My flight left O’Hare at 8:00 AM. I got up early but told myself that I could sleep for another 30 minutes, so I did, which was a bad idea. Traffic was heavy and I took a Lyft. I barely made it on my flight. I was the last person on the plane and they shooed me down the jetway without even checking my boarding pass. It was very hot on the plane when I got on. I got a middle seat, which is always a treat.
The person to my right was a skinny young man who was pretty much already asleep with his head drooping once we were all seated. He kept jerking awake. The person to my left was a woman with red dreadlocks and reading a book, but she soon fell asleep as well. Both of them slept most of the flight, which was uneventful until we landed. The plane was wobbling a bit just as we were about to touch down on the runway and it made me wonder if it was going to be rough. We touched down and then the plane bounced. We all came up out of our seats, some people yelled, and the woman next to me grabbed my left arm as I put my right hand against the back of the seat in front of me. It was alarming, but then it was over and everyone was chattering and laughing. I looked at the woman next to me, who had a stunned look on her face. She apologized for grabbing me, saying, “I’ve never had a landing like that.” I told her that it was fine, of course.
After disembarking the plane I made my way through the airport to the car rental counter, where my other sister Katye and Mama were waiting for me. I had made the car reservation but Mama was going to pay for the car, so we both had to be at the counter. Mama had just realized on Friday that her driver’s license had expired in July. We had talked about this over the phone and I had told her that this could potentially be a problem with travel; turns out it was easier for her to fly with an expired ID than it was to get a car. Once the clerk noticed that her ID was expired it began an ordeal. They had to have my ID because I was going to be the driver; Mama had to be listed as the main driver even though she wasn’t going to be driving at all, and thus had to have a valid ID present. The ID and the credit card used to pay had to be from the same person. She had to add me as an additional driver (even though I was to be the only driver), which cost extra. They asked her if she could contact her local DMV and have them email and/or fax a statement on official letterhead saying that she has a valid ID. This is where there was an advantage in being from a small town. Mama called (and texted) a woman who works at the office where they issue driver’s licenses back home and they took care of all the things that they needed for us to get the car. This took a long time because we were given the wrong email address at first, then when the fax came it wasn’t on official letterhead. They eventually worked it all out, but we were all frustrated and ready to be on our way.
They sent us up two levels into the parking structure where the cars are kept. When we entered the garage the attendant waved us toward a nice big car and said, “Just take that one.” We started toward it and she said, “Full size, right?”
“No,” I said. “Economy.”
“Oh, OK. See that silver one over there?”
“OK.”
Said silver car was almost the size of a roller skate. It was a teensy Toyota Yaris which barely fit the three of us and our luggage. We giggled our way out of the garage and drove into the city to have lunch at Horn’s, which had been recommended to me by a friend. I had been told to say hi to Kappa, the owner, once we got there, but once we were seated and I asked for Kappa they told me that she wasn’t there at the moment. “You’ll know if she comes in,” one of the servers said. “She takes over the room.” Unfortunately she never did while we were there.
Katye is extremely fickle about what she eats, and the list of things she will eat is much shorter than the list of things she won’t. She ordered a pulled pork po’ boy sandwich, but after subtracting all the things she wouldn’t eat from it (any sauces/dressings, any vegetables) she ended up with shredded meat on a bun. Mama had pulled pork with black beans and rice and plantains. I had black beans and rice. The food was fine but nothing spectacular in my opinion; the other two, when asked, responded with their usual, “It’s all right.” Tough crowd to impress.
Jewish coonass (?!?) on the menu at Horn’s.
Becca had arrived as we were driving into the city and had gotten to the hotel by the time we were finished with lunch, so we drove to the hotel to get settled and pick her up. She hadn’t eaten so she went to a restaurant with her colleagues; while she did that the rest of us went to Harrah’s Casino, which was across the street from our hotel. I played $20 in a slot machine and had almost doubled my money at one point. I think I cashed out with a few extra dollars; Mama played $20 and ended up cashing out with $10 extra. Katye had played $20 and lost it all immediately. She looked on enviously as I kept playing and adding to my winnings. We had each taken only $20 to avoid temptation.
Once Becca was ready we got our bearings and walked to the St. Charles streetcar line, taking it to the Garden District. We did a self-guided walking tour and saw countless beautiful homes, including one formerly belonging to Anne Rice, the one where Jefferson Davis died, and, according to my guidebook, one belonging to John Goodman.
Katye in front of Colonel Short’s Villa, known for its ornate cornstalk fence.
The cornstalk fence at Colonel Short’s Villa.
The Lonsdale House, which was a Catholic chapel for over 70 years.
The Women’s Guild of the New Orleans Opera Association House, now a catering hall for weddings and social events.
The Bradish-Johnson House, now a private girls’ school.
The Toby-Westfeldt House, an example of a Creole colonial home.
Gaslight.
The house where Anne Rice lived.
The Payne House, where Confederate president Jefferson Davis died.
John Goodman’s house.
The Robinson House, thought to be the first house in New Orleans with indoor plumbing.
The Nolan House, where Benjamin Button was raised in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”
Lafayette Cemetery No. 1.
Mardi Gras beads hanging from trees.
On the streetcar.
We returned downtown and went to dinner near the hotel at a cafeteria-style place called Mother’s. Becca wasn’t really hungry since she had eaten so late so she had bread pudding, as did Mama. It was a meat-heavy menu, so as a vegetarian I didn’t have much to choose from; even most of the sides had pork in them. I ended up with green beans and tomatoes, which were very good, and potato salad, which was also good. Katye had a ham sandwich, which she didn’t realize came with lettuce and mayonnaise, so she spent some time scraping all that off of her sandwich before eating it. She had an enormous side of fries so Becca and I relieved her of many of those. I asked how everyone’s food was. “All right.”
We got back to the hotel room around 9:00 or 9:30. I am a night owl and everyone else was ready to go to sleep. The three ladies started to read and I turned on the TV, wondering what to do with myself because they were clearly going to fall asleep soon, as eyelids were heavy and books were wilting in hands. When Katye is ready for sleep she wants all the lights off as well as the TV. Understandable, but I wasn’t feeling terribly sleepy myself. I decided to try to just get to sleep. I laid in bed but sleep was elusive.
Thankfully I had chosen to share a bed with Becca, because she is a very quiet sleeper. The other side of the room, however, eventually erupted into a wretched symphony of snoring, puffing, squeaking, and the like. I am a very light sleeper unless I am in deep sleep and the slightest noise can wake me up. Occasionally there would be a delicious gap in the racket when the stars aligned and the orchestra members had both turned onto their sides or some other maneuver which rendered their breathing back to normal…but only for a time. Becca was so quiet that at one point I struggled to see in the dark to verify that there was movement from her indicating that she was still breathing. Finally the realization of the futility of my attempt to get much sleep came upon me and I giggled silently as the noises wore on, which made the bed move, which made me worry that I would wake Becca, which made me giggle more, and so on. To my knowledge none of this interfered with her slumber. She did, however, at one point wake up to go to the bathroom. The schnoz duet was in full force when she did and she said, “Darth Vader is in here.” It was hilarious because one of them did, indeed, sound like she was on a respirator. We started to giggle as quietly as possible, which shook the bed, which made us giggle harder until we couldn’t be very quiet about it any more. Never fear; nothing woke the musicians.
At one point Katye woke up and said, “Do y’all smell sausage?” None who was awake did.
Mama and Katye suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome, so there can be repeated visits to the bathroom throughout the night, and an attack can strike suddenly with little to no warning. This night was a tour de force of IBS. They were up and down many times; one of them had bought a travel-size can of Lysol spray, which doesn’t eliminate odors. It just lays down on top of them. I’m quite certain that an infrared camera would have revealed a green cloud over the entire hotel room.
Day Two: September 19
In the morning, when everyone was rousing and getting ready, Katye stood up out of the bed and, wide-eyed, with morning face and bed hair, started backing around the corner to the bathroom. I looked at her quizzically and she said, “I think I just pooped my pants,” and disappeared behind the bathroom door. Turns out that she did not. This condition just makes one ASSume the worst.
We went to Café du Monde for breakfast. We all got café au laits and beignets. Nobody was impressed.
Me and Becca at Cafe du Monde.
Someone had given Becca a brochure of a self-guided walking tour of the French Quarter so we decided to do that. Nobody was greatly interested in many/most of the buildings on the tour. It was a long tour and we kept stopping to shop so it took most of the day.
The French Quarter.
Katye and Becca in front of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis King of France, the oldest active cathedral in the US.
We stopped for a while to listen to a jazz band playing on Jackson Square; Mama wanted to give them some money so we did that at the end of “Sweet Georgia Brown.” I ducked into one of the museums, The Cabildo, to pay $6.18 just so I could go in and get a picture of Napoleon’s death mask. Turns out it was a reproduction of it, but still I got it. The Cabildo is the building in which Louisiana became a state.
The Cabildo.
Napoleon’s death mask.
Much of Bourbon Street was under heavy construction, with the actual street fenced off and forcing everyone onto the narrow sidewalks. We marveled at the amount of alcohol being delivered in the afternoon to all the businesses along that street itself. Becca had to leave us to go back for her conference to begin and we continued our journey. Once we reached Pat O’Brien’s we naturally had to stop in for Hurricanes. We sat inside and Katye sucked hers down immediately. I warned her that she was in for it when that kicked in. Mama and I drank ours at a leisurely pace; they came in large plastic cups so we could take them with us, which we did. Soon after resuming our walk Hurricane Katye began. She flushes when she drinks alcohol, so one side of her face, her neck, and her arm were red. She was giggling and said she needed to focus straight ahead of herself so she could walk.
Pat O’Brien’s.
Hurricanes!
We reached Pirate’s Alley and the book store there which was once William Faulkner’s apartment. I held the drinks and babysat (drunksat?) Katye while Mama went in the store. Something that someone had said had given Katye a fit of hysterical laughter and she was standing there doing so with tears streaming from her eyes for several minutes. She calmed herself somewhat and entered the store, where Mama told her in the quiet, “I could hear y’all all the way in here.”
The Faulkner House.
A little while later Katye had sobered up again and everyone was getting tired of walking, but I had to finish the walking tour because I had gotten that far along into it; I’m no quitter! It started to rain and got pretty heavy, so we took shelter against a building under a balcony, but Katye thought that she should go around the corner of the building to the other side for better shelter. She did, and Mama and I started acting dumb, yelling out things like “Where’d you go?” in silly voices. We were giggling hard at ourselves and I said in a loud, strange voice, “Did you melt?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man’s head peep around the corner where Katye had gone. Unbeknownst to me, a woman had also looked around the corner, which Mama saw. This sent us into a fit of fresh giggles because we realized that they had heard us and, after we mostly recovered, we went around the corner to join them. Turns out it was a better spot.
The two of them decided to go to the streetcar and back to the hotel; I said that I would finish the walking tour and come back to join them after that. I continued, but the rain turned into a torrential downpour. I sheltered as best I could under a balcony again and waited it out, which took at least 30 minutes. Finally it abated and I continued the tour, which took me to the LaLaurie House, ostensibly the most haunted and most famous private residence in the city. Delphine LaLaurie was a socialite in the 1800s, hosting big parties, but there were rumors about the servants. In 1834 a fire broke out and when neighbors burst into a room they found seven starving servants chained up in painful positions. People began gathering outside the house after a newspaper suggested that she had set the fire. A carriage raced out of the gate and away from the scene and Delphine never returned until she was brought back in death and buried in secrecy. They say you can hear groans and the sound of whips lashing at the house.
The LaLaurie Mansion.
Another highlight of the tour for me was Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar. I didn’t go inside, but it’s a cute place in a very old building (at least 1772). The last place of note in my opinion was the Cornstalk Inn. It’s a beautiful building with a cornstalk iron fence at the perimeter of the property.
Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop.
The Cornstalk Inn.
I made my way to the streetcar and took it back to the hotel, where I showered and got ready for the evening. I dressed up because I hoped to go out on the town, but I didn’t have much money so I couldn’t really do much. We went to dinner at Huck Finn’s, which had been recommended to the ladies by the concierge. I got a veggie wrap, Katye got a seafood platter, Mama got shrimp and grits, and Becca got grilled chicken. Nobody was impressed.
Ready to go out. Ahh, sometimes hotel bathroom lighting is so flattering….
After dinner we walked around the French Quarter; I had told them how it’s very different at night on Bourbon Street than it is during the day. We stopped by the Hotel Monteleone to go to the Carousel Bar, which was very busy, and nobody would get a drink so there was really nothing else to do except look at it. The stars in the ceiling that I remembered were no longer there, but the bar is still beautiful and rotates slowly.
We walked down Bourbon Street for many blocks. I had stopped by a liquor store earlier before my return to the hotel and bought a small bottle of Fireball, which I kept in my pocket. I offered everyone a nip but there were no takers. We kept running into people Becca knew from her conference and/or her coworkers. Mama heard some music she liked so we went into the bar where they were playing. They were good, and I got a ridiculously priced drink. We listened to them for a while and then moved on down the street. We stopped at Oz, a gay bar, where they were just finishing up their Boylesque show, so we saw the very end of that. After that we walked back along the river toward our hotel. Katye had a sudden attack of the bathroom variety so she and I hustled to Harrah’s, which was the closest restroom facility we could figure. She didn’t know if she was going to make it, but she did. As we were at the casino we played the slots for a bit. I took advantage of the free drinks (well, I just had one). We went back to the hotel and I really wanted to go back out but I was too poor, feeling tired, and we needed to get up early the next morning, so I stayed in and finished the Fireball before falling asleep.
Day Three: September 20
I woke up at 4:30 and decided to start getting ready because we wanted to leave by 6:00 to have breakfast and drive out to plantation country. Becca’s first meeting was at 8:30 so we had to leave her there. Becca was lying in bed and said, “Jeffrey, I have to tell you something.”
“What?” I asked, figuring I knew what it was going to be.
“You were snoring,” she said. They all agreed. I figured I had been because of the Fireball. I told the two in the other bed that now they knew what it feels like. I apologized to Becca.
Something made Mama sick and she had gotten out of bed in the middle of the night to throw up. I didn’t hear a thing (probably because I was snoring over it), but the other two heard it. We had no idea what had caused it, and she seemed to feel fine the rest of the day. That morning New Orleans issued a boil water advisory, as something had gone wrong at their water treatment plant. Becca and I were fine but Mama and Katye had issues, but for them that’s often, unfortunately, the norm.
We got in the car and started our journey to the Great River Road. We had agreed to just stop somewhere for breakfast if it caught our eye. Nothing did and we ended up reaching the plantations without having eaten. We decided to start at Oak Alley, as it was the one that seemed to start tours earliest. This has been a trip Mama has been wanting to take for a long time. We were approaching Oak Alley and I said, “There it is.” As we drove up we passed by the famous view of the house through the alley of trees. I looked over at Mama and her face lit up, positively beaming, and she said, “Oh, my gosh!” Her eyes welled up and I will never forget it. I am so thankful to have experienced that with her. I asked her if she was crying and she said that her eyes were watering but that she wasn’t crying. Mmm hmm.
We parked and decided to eat at the restaurant on the plantation. Between the parking lot we chose and the restaurant there was an exhibit about the slaves and their quarters so we made our way through the first half of that, then went to the restaurant. Mama got bacon and eggs with grits and a biscuit, Katye got Cajun French toast and ham, and I got Cajun French toast. When I asked the server what made it Cajun she said, “Just the name.” They serve cane syrup instead of maple, as it is a sugar cane plantation. It tasted similar to molasses. Mama said her food was bland. Mine was fine but nothing remarkable.
We finished and went through the second half of the slavery exhibit. On one of the walls of one of the cabins they had printed all the names of the 220 or so slaves that had lived and worked on the property. Such a horrific institution, and my heart just aches over what so many millions of people endured for so many years. Stolen from their homes on other continents, mistreated and degraded, ripped apart from their families and regarded as assets or property rather than humans. It affected me being in a place where we know for a fact that this was a part of daily life.
A woman approached us while we were in the exhibit and said that she was going to give a short talk on slavery in a few minutes if we’d care to listen. We walked over to where she was and listened to her talk about three of the slaves whose stories are known. It was interesting.
After the slavery talk we went over to the Big House and got our tickets for the tour. The woman at the ticket desk asked if we had any discounts to apply toward our admission. “Military, AAA, senior citizen?”
“Senior,” said Mama.
“Anything else?” the lady asked. “What about you, sir?” she asked me.
“I got nothin’,” I said.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“I’m 45,” I said.
“Oh, you’re too young,” she said. How old did she think I was?!?
Our tour group was very large and our guide was a young woman in period dress who was sweet but a little dorky. She took us through the house, which was quite large, and told us stories of the property, the house, and the people who had lived there. At one point the house was run down and uninhabited; during a storm some cattle broke into the house to take shelter and destroyed the marble flooring on the first floor. What a tragic loss. The house was allowed to be used as a barn, basically, for 12 years. Thankfully it has been restored. Toward the end of the tour the guide announced that she knew that we weren’t really there to hear her stories but to see the real stars of the property. Opening the front doors onto the center of the upstairs balcony, which wrapped entirely around the house, she said dramatically, “Ladies and gentlemen, the oak trees of Oak Alley.” Mama said she teared up again at that point. The view was quite grand. The trees are 350 years or so old, which is about half their expected life span. They grow in two straight rows, framing the house from the road a quarter of a mile away.
Slave quarters at Oak Alley Plantation.
Ceiling fan at Oak Alley Plantation.
Oak Alley Plantation.
After we finished the tour of Oak Alley we headed down the road to Evergreen Plantation, which was the other one Mama really wanted to see. The last tour was at 2:00 and we got there just a little past 1:00, so we had some time to kill. We bought our tickets and looked at the exhibits in the house from which the tours embark.
At 2:00 our tour guide emerged. His name was Ty and he was a very skinny young man, quite quirky. He talked a lot with his hands and would look at all of us, then look down and pause before continuing with his next segment. It was almost as if he was downloading the next bit of material; I wonder if he was autistic or something of the sort, because there was one part of the tour where it really bogged down and it appeared that he was struggling. After he finished his spiel for each portion of the tour, he always said, “That concludes this portion of the tour. Feel free to make pictures if you’d like, and when everyone is finished we’ll continue on to the next part of the tour.” I felt for him, but I was glad that he’s out doing something like this and trying to work around whatever his situation is.
We left the house where the tour tickets are sold and drove, following our guide to the property. There was a very long driveway adjacent to the property to afford access to the plantation without destroying the actual driveway, which is gravel with shells dredged from the bottom of the Mississippi River. This practice was forbidden beginning in 1900, so the shells are that old; hence the desire to preserve them and not have tourists driving over them and crushing them every day. The access driveway was framed by old oak trees covered in Spanish moss and was quite photographic itself.
The driveway to Evergreen Plantation.
We toured the grounds and the house, learning about the people who had lived there and the history of the property. The crowning jewel of this tour, however, was the very end, which is two rows of the original slave quarters in their original positions. It was a stark reminder of the days of slavery once again. As we reached this area, much further from the Big House than the ones at Oak Alley (which were unusually close to the Big House there), it began to rain. There was thunder rumbling in the distance and it lent an eerie quality to the sad relics of the past that we were experiencing.
Evergreen Plantation.
The slave quarters at Evergreen Plantation.
We walked back to the car in the rain. It was around 3:30 when we finished the tour, and we drove all the way out to Nottoway Plantation. It was too late in the day for tours, but it’s a hotel with a restaurant and event space, and the largest plantation house in the South. It was absolutely beautiful and a sight to behold. We were allowed to wander the grounds. There were swings in two of the giant oak trees and Mama and Katye each took a swing in one. The house is enormous and stark white, very well maintained. We checked the room rates and they were not bad at all; I had expected exorbitant rates, but Katye looked it up and told us that the rooms were just over $100 per night.
Nottoway Plantation.
I was being pestered relentlessly by bugs so I was ready to go; we got in the car and started the drive back to New Orleans to reconnect with Becca. A storm accosted us on the way with high winds and heavy rain. The tiny Yaris was being buffeted about and it hydroplaned so I slowed down a great deal. It took us over an hour to get back to the hotel. Once we arrived most of us were hungry, but Mama didn’t feel like going to eat. She wanted to rest at the hotel and asked us to bring her some fruit when we returned. We had stopped for ice cream at a CVS and ate it in the car before Nottoway so she wasn’t feeling particularly hungry.
We three siblings got in the car and my sisters decided they wanted Italian food, so Becca found a restaurant online and we went there. It was called Arabella Casa di Pasta. Katye had fettuccine Alfredo with chicken and broccoli, Becca had rotini with pecan pesto and meatballs, and I had rigatoni funghi. The cute guy who took our order had to warn us when we ordered sodas that when it comes out of the gun it gets mixed with water; he said he’d not known anyone who’d had a soda to have any issues, but that he wanted to give us that choice since there was a boil water advisory. He said that their ice was fine because their ice machine stores 500 pounds of ice at a time and stops producing ice when it’s full overnight, so first thing in the morning after they heard about the water advisory they had cut off the water to the ice machine. Katye decided to have a beer and Becca and I had bottled water. The food was good, although not quite as good as at Pasta Palazzo where I work.
After dinner we went on a mission to find a supermarket so we could get ice cream and some fruit for Mama. It was getting late and we ended up at Wal-Mart. Ugh…I hate giving that wretched corporation any money, but I was desperate. We made our purchases and drove back to the hotel. Mama was asleep but we gave her her fruit when she woke up as we came in. She ate just a little and we all got ready for bed and went to sleep after we ate our ice cream.
Day Four: September 21
We got up early because Becca had wanted to go to a place called Belle’s Diner for breakfast before her first meeting at 8:30, and then she was flying back home. Her shuttle to the airport was to leave at noon. We all got ready and went to the diner, which one of her coworkers had discovered and recommended, and got there just after they opened at 7:30; Becca’s coworker was already there having breakfast. As we sat two more people Becca knew came in for breakfast.
I got a veggie omelet; Mama got a BLTE without the E (egg); Katye got a ham and cheese omelet; and Becca got a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich. The eggs in my omelet were very airy and fluffy; maybe they whipped them. The food was good, but nobody raved. Becca could only eat half her sandwich and the server asked if she wanted it to go. She explained that she was going to the airport later and couldn’t take it with her. He took it away, then came back a little later and said that the homeless people across the street thanked her for her food. I’m so glad that they do that with their leftovers. I’m assuming they only give them the untouched portions, but who knows? I guess anything is appreciated by them.
After breakfast we walked over to the French Market, which was a flea market. The concierge had told Becca that that’s the place to get the best souvenirs. It didn’t open until 10:00, so we drove Becca back to the hotel and we packed our stuff up to be ready to check out at noon. We drove to the Ninth Ward to see how it looks now. It was a stark reminder of Hurricane Katrina. There were steps leading to nothing where houses had been, scores of empty lots, and overgrown streets which were certainly lined with homes before the storm. It was humbling.
The Ninth Ward.
Becca went to the French Quarter to buy souvenirs before her time to leave and we were going to try to meet up with her. We stopped for gas and the pump nozzle wouldn’t lock in place so I had to stand there and hold it while I filled the tank. I was looking elsewhere when it got full but it didn’t cut off like they normally do and gas gushed out of the car onto the pavement as well as my left ankle, shoe, and sock. I reeked of gasoline. The receipt wouldn’t print so I went inside to get it and to tell them about the pump. I asked for the receipt and told him that the pump didn’t shut off and that gas had gotten all over me. He acted as if he either didn’t care or didn’t understand what I said, so I just left.
We went to the hotel and I finished packing up my stuff after washing the gas off of me. I put my shoes and socks in a plastic bag, then put that into another plastic bag in hopes that my suitcase wouldn’t smell like fuel. We went to Harrah’s to kill some time and Becca messaged us, saying that the airport shuttle had arrived early and two different people had called her to tell her that they were waiting on her. It was kind of ridiculous; the shuttle should wait until its scheduled time before people are pressuring you to come. We didn’t even get to see her to say goodbye.
Mama broke even at the casino; she gave me $20 to play, which I lost, and Katye lost her $20. We put our bags in the car and checked out of the hotel. I had to wait in line at the front desk to pay $7.00 for a shirt I had had them dry clean for me so that it wouldn’t be added to Becca’s room. We drove back to the French Quarter so they could buy souvenirs. We walked around for almost two hours as they made their purchases, then headed to lunch before I had to be at the airport and return the car. We stopped at a place near the airport called The Original Italian Pie. Mama had a veggie wrap, which was huge and she felt guilty because she couldn’t finish it. I had a vegetarian pizza and Katye had a chicken Alfredo pizza. After lunch we went to the airport, returned the car, and said our goodbyes, as my flight was boarding in a separate terminal in 45 minutes.
Becca sent us a picture of the woman who checked them in at the airport; she was dressed as Wonder Woman. She moved to the gate before they took off so she saw her twice, then Katye and Mama had her at their gate!
I was booked in a middle seat so I went to the gate agent and asked her if the flight was full. She had just dealt with a handsome man with a nice body who was apparently not nice to her, as she was glaring at him fiercely when he walked away from the desk. She told me that the flight was not full and changed me to a window seat. When I boarded it was the exit row, which gave me lots of legroom. The flight attendant announced that they were expecting a completely full flight, but my row was just me after everyone else had boarded. Across the aisle was the man who the gate attendant had dealt with and glared at, and he was on his phone the whole time we were going through the safety presentation, etc. When you’re in an exit row you have to be addressed directly by a flight attendant so they can make sure you understand what will be expected of you in the event of an emergency; they have to have direct verbal confirmation from you that you agree to these conditions. The guy on the phone (henceforth referred to as Captain Douche) blurted out, “Yes!” very condescendingly when the flight attendant asked if we agreed to the exit row requirements. However, the flight attendant had to have an individual confirmation from us one at a time, so he had to ask him again. He also asked him to put his personal item (a small bag) under the seat in front of him and to get off his phone, neither of which he did. Another flight attendant came along and asked him the same thing; he completely ignored her and she made him move to the row in front of me. He didn’t like that too much and kept staring at his phone and texting the entire time as he moved. She told him that she was moving him because he wasn’t complying with them and he said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m complying,” never once looking up at her. He was a complete self-absorbed asshole. His phone continued to ding with incoming messages even after they had asked him repeatedly to turn it off. I don’t think he ever put it in airplane mode for the duration of the flight. Yet another flight attendant came along and asked him to put his bag under the seat in front of him. He pushed it, barely, and never put it under the seat.
During the flight he got up and moved back to my row in the aisle seat. I wanted to throw him out the emergency door. He turned on some music with his phone, which started blaring out of his headphones around his neck. I shot him a look and he never once looked around. It was as if he was totally aware that he was Captain Douche and knew better than to look at anyone else around him. He put the headphones on his ears and the noise abated. When the flight attendants came around for service he ordered two mini bottles of vodka and a can of ginger ale. He pulled out his laptop and was checking emails, so I’m sure that was still online as well. I wanted them to have him arrested at the gate, but no such luck. Every time someone came around to collect trash he would wait until they had already passed us by and then touch their arm or call out to them to give them his garbage. Then he spilled his drink on his leg and laptop, which was a delicious moment of fairly swift karma. He let out a little shrill shriek of surprise. I made no move whatsoever to help him. I just looked on as he cleaned it up, smugly pleased.
When we landed we had to wait longer than normal because we were at a “hard stand,” which is where you have no jetway and have to go down a ramp to the runway and then up stairs into the terminal. The ramp was wobbling quite a bit and the wind was whipping through it so I was glad when I got off of it onto terra firma. It was hot and humid in Chicago, almost like New Orleans, but the humidity down there was much worse.
I took the train to the bus and when I got on the bus my transit card said that it had insufficient fare. I had forgotten that the fare from the airport is $5.00, so it had used up the remaining balance on my card. The bus driver was cool and told me to just go ahead, which is a good thing because I had no money on me. Once the bus dropped me off I thought I’d try my luck with the last bus to get me home, hoping that that driver would be as nice as the other one. No such luck. My card was worthless so I had to get off the bus and walk the mile or so home. In flip flops. Pulling a suitcase. But I made it and am thankful for a great trip with family. I hope that we can do many more such things together.