The Honeymooners

26 September, 13

My anniversary blog the other day spawned a lot of Facebook chatter. Thanks to all who wished us well. I am eternally grateful to my ex-girlfriend for introducing Susan to me. I should send her a gift or something. She probably gave herself the biggest gift possible in dumping me.

Susan's brother Jeff Kjellgren, aka Jeff Curtis, who is an amazing guitar player, reminded me of our honeymoon fiasco. We got married in Lake Worth, Florida, which is basically an extension of West Palm Beach. Our first night was in a nice hotel that gave us a free upgrade to the Presidential Suite. The next morning, we were picked up by our pastor, who was to take us to the Miami Airport. We were headed to Brussels, Paris, Lucerne and Bern for our honeymoon. My daddy always said, "Boy, the gene pool here in South Carolina is pretty shallow. You need to dive into deeper waters." I took the high dive into the Mariana Trench when I got married.

Everything was smooth as butter that morning. Pastor Glen picked us up and drove us the hour to Miami Airport. We got out and grabbed our bags at the curbside check-in. Only we were missing one bag. The bag with our tickets. And passports. And money. Houston, we have a problem.

The blood drained from my new bride's beautiful face. I only had two jobs the whole dang week. Say, "I do" and load the luggage. So far I'm batting .500. Well, I sprang into action. I leaped to a pay phone (this was 1995, when they had whole banks of pay phones) and tried to call my new mother-in-law. The hole just keeps getting deeper, doesn't it? We still had plenty of time before our flight. All I needed was for her to drive the bag, which was left at the hotel concierge's desk, from Palm Beach to Miami. Problem solved.

Except she wasn't home. Only Bert, my new 80 year old, just had a massive heart attack and doesn't need stress, father-in-law was at home with his son, Jeff. Neither of them can hear worth a dern, so I was trying to yell in a very calm manner, not wanting to send Bert into defib. I simply told him that we left a bag at the hotel, and that we need Joyce to bring it to the airport at her earliest convenience.

I waited 15 minutes and called the hotel to see if the bag was picked up. "Yes, it was. Some old guy picked it up a few minutes ago." Throw away the shovel and commence to digging with a backhoe. This hole is gonna be deep, boys. Visions of a new bride burying her daddy, in lieu of a honeymoon, were dancing through my head. I had already planned out which sofa was going to be mine for the rest of my life.

We waited pensively outside the doors of the airport for an eternity. Time was now against us. We were in danger of missing our flight. Suddenly we saw Jeff running through the airport. Okay, he was doing a quick walk, but in his mind, he was Carl Lewis running for gold. We grabbed the bag and took off running toward the metal detector. I quickly realized that my pockets were full of condoms in cute little metal packages that resembled coins. Full. I took them all out in a wad and threw them at the cop beside the metal detector as I pulled my bride behind me. We never looked back. Some cop was gonna get lucky that night. I ran a la OJ Simpson through the airport, juking and jiving. Every now and then I would look back to try and spot my lovely wife in the fading distance. It was getting harder and harder to see her, but I knew that if I could get to the gate, I could lodge myself in the doorway until she arrived.

We finally got to the gate, and the door was closed. No amount of begging, pleading, "Hey, we're newlyweds", worked on the guy at the gate. Sunk. We just stood there despondent. Then the guy said, "Hey, if you stay here at the airport for 5 hours, we can give you a direct flight to Paris." Cue the angels singing. Hallelujah!! Praise the LORD!!

We missed our flight to Belgium, which we didn't really care about anyway, and got an extra day in Paris. Butter my butt, and call me a biscuit! I would never in my life have dreamed things could work out that way.

And that is a microcosm for my life. I forget stuff, and the rest of the world commences a mad dash to make it work out.

P.S. Bert was fine. He had the time of his life driving 90 mph down I-95.