$350 lunch / lecture

My $350 lunch
OR
My $350 lesson

I should have known better than to eat something I couldn't quite decipher, when I wasn't really hungry anyway (but figured I would be later). However I thought I was being clever; settling into a cheesy but bright eatery at San Juan airport, plugging in, logging on, and making the best of my ample, really ample, layover. The young waiter and I communicated in broken English and worse Spanish; me telling him I didn't want anything breaded or fried, nor pasta or sandwich as I've been having some food sensitivity issues ... Well that was just about everything on the menu. And I don't fault him for trying to accommodate by bringing me the peculiar 'steak' crested in onions and cheese that had been melted into a plastic-like shield. I was skyping Susan at the time and posed the question: 'Is it tongue? Meatloaf?' It was odd, but didn't taste bad, nestled in a bed of plantain mush, and a forest of lettuce; it seemed fine and I picked at it as I worked and waited for my departure time.

In any event, a growing discomfort and rumbling prompted me to make one last pit stop on the way to my gate: a pit stop that lasted 20 minutes, during which - for the first time in the history of the airlines - a flight boarded at a breakneck pace, without any disorder or interruption; and they slammed shut the gate 20 minutes before departure.

Oh the plane was still there when I emerged, pasty and foul but void of vaca loca; but those b#@*(&@#($ uhm, 'air travel professionals' chided me, told me in no uncertain terms that iI was SOL on JetBlue, and sent me off to AIR LIAT to look for a ticket.

The long and the short of it, nine hours later, is that I had missed the last flight from San Juan to St Maarten; I retrieved my bag; began scouring the counters for flights to SXM; got the first (10:45AM) flight out tomorrow at great expense; declined to stay at the decrepit airport hotel for the $189 quoted so went to McDonalds (where they absolutely insisted I buy some food item, in order to use their password, even though I'd just hurled everything from my toes up, so I bought a soda, which i sipped in small measures, and I would like to now announce to the world THE PASSWORD AT THE MCDONALDS AT SAN JUAN AIRPORT IS "mcdonalds" !!!!!!) and began a lengthy Expedia / Priceline / Airbnb search for accommodations ... nursing my soda as tenderly as I was inching up my Priceline quotes. Ultimately I got accommodations at a beachside casino, at great expense (I hate casinos) a good $15 taxi ride away. WIfi extra.

So when you add up the new ticket, the hotel, the taxi, the wifi, and the bottle of wine that I got from the local grocery store - it being 1) about half the price of a GLASS of wine downstairs and 2) critical to my sanity ... I'm at about $350. And devastated. This is moolah I don't have extr-ah so stand by for the boing, boing, boing of checks bouncing.

Lesson one is: Bring your own lunch. Don't eat when you're not hungry. Don't eat things you can't identify. If you are going to hurl - hurl on the plane. They're used to it. (This is sort of an amalgamation of lessons)

But the other lesson has to do with Plan B-ability.

I spent a bit of time in shock that the plane was sitting there and they wouldn't let me on, willing the door to reopen. But basically no one gives a fig and nothing is going to change. Lesson: get on with it. When the going gets tough, the tough don't sit and whine. Formulate a solid Plan B immediately.

Then I wanderered through the motions, getting my bag and telling my tale; looking for a hotel, and telling my tale; texting my friends, telling my tale. (Oh a smarty pants at baggage asked if I wanted a ride to the hospital. She wouldn't have offered a half hour earlier, I betcha!) But see item one! No one gives a shit! the Stop dwelling on the story. It just makes you feel bad. Forge ahead on your new track.
   
By the time I scoured all the room options and secured one, got the taxi, checked in, moped around... there was little time left to enjoy my 'casino & resort' accommodations. I went for a half hour stroll on the beach til sunset, then walked to a grocery store to buy a little snack (being fearful of eating real food) and wine.
 
Embrace your new direction.
 Had I jumped on the program sooner, I could have enjoyed more time on the beach or pool; or even dressed up and trolled for someone to buy me a drink downstairs (although there are an awful lot of women sashaying around - who all must have lost their luggage, because they are women my aged, dressed in their daughters' clothes ;-? ) In any event: this time and money is shot - whether I enjoy it or not. How much better to check my 'grumpiness' at the door, and enjoy my diversion to San Juan ...