Lunch With Dave

Arrangements had to be made. A mid morning call from Delta informed us that our flight from Knoxville to Atlanta had been cancelled. The rebooked flight would be of no use, it’s arrival in Naples was some five hours too late for my wife to attend a required meeting. Time was tight so immediate choices had to be made, I suggested we rent a one way car to the Atlanta airport and try to make the original flight (2:20 departure).

We hit the knoxville airport rental counter at ten thirty, waited in line for a few moments and reached the counter. Gina’s cell phone barked and she went off to stand in a corner.

“We have you in a Camry” The overly helpful counter lady began “You can have insurance for..”
I cut her off, the insurance, the “gold club” amenities were all trivialities.
“The camry, is it a 6 cylinder?” I asked
She began stammering and punching buttons on her computer.
“It’s of no import, the car is unnacceptable. Surley you have something a bit more powerful?”
“We do have a few premiums cars available” she allowed.
“Excellent, I’ll take the largest engine available” I said.
This statement received a puzzled look and she assumed that she misheard me.
“The impala has a very large trunk sir and you won’t have to pay the premium price”
“No, you misunderstand. I require a car with a very large engine.”
This time my request struck home. Apparently people wanting to rent a car to drive at top speed is not an uncommon occurence. Keys flashed, I paid the eight dollar upgrade fee, signed a myriad of papers grabbed Gina and headed out the door, it was 11:00 AM.

The drive from Knoxville to Atlanta is generally thought to be 3.5 hours. This is true enough for most folks. They want to head to the very northern section of Atlanta. The airport, however, is a south Atlanta phenomenon. At this point my plan was to drive at top speed from Knoxville to the outskirts of Atlanta and switch the driving over to Gina to handle the muddled Atlanta traffic. I haven’t had a ticket in seventeen years so I figured if the worst happened I could take one for the team. Once we left Knoxville proper I applied maximum pressure to the accelerator and the continental hummed along without complaint. The roads were too crowded for true top speed driving, so I was forced to keep the sluggish handling lincoln between ninety and an even one hundred. Still, we were eating up the road and we were well on track to make the 2:20 departure.

The driver switch and the Atlanta traffic, both major worries at one time, proved to be small obstacles. We arrived at the airport at 1:25PM. No problem to make the 2:20 and get back on schedule. Heck, I even walked slow and had a smoke. We went through the self check in process and my ticket printed out with an odd identifier: SSSS. I don’t fly often and this meant nothing to me until I got to security. I flashed my ID and handed the screener my pass. The small woman was very meticulous, her job was obviously a serious challenge for her intellect (not a disparaging remark, I bet everyone wishes they had a job that was a bit more mentally stimulating). After a period of inspection she slowly took out a highliter and marked over the SSSS’s. Then she held my ID and ticket aloft. “This,” thought I, “cannot be good”

It wasn’t, once you’re a selectee you get to go stand in a special line where you wait a very long time. Once Airport security has decided that any time bombs you were carrying would have long ago gone off you get to walk through a metal detector. Then a nice TSA agent (and they were unfailingly polite) runs a metal detecting wand over you and searches your bags. All I had was a pack of smokes and a wallet (tip here: if you see SSSS on your ticket hand your carry on bag off someone you’re traveling with) but the smokes and the wallet got a thorough inspection. All my tricky heel toe driving had come to naught and we waited for the four PM flight. The wife held this against me, ignoring my earlier driving heroics she felt I had done something, sent up some red flag to be a “selectee.” She may be right, I checked no baggage, perhaps that’s a red flag.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. Naples is nice, everyone is about fifty years older than they appear, plastic surgery being the norm. Some of these people had thier faces streched tighter than a drumhead and this gave them a very odd appearence, especially if you happened to look at their hands while talking. See, their hands would look sixty and their face would look…well, sixty. But a very taut sixty. I spent a good deal of time wondering how high I could bounce a quarter off of the average resident’s cheek.

I did have an interesting brush with fame. Saturday we decided that Nate (son #1) was going to have to get a scholarship to go to college. Well, we decided we wanted to eat lunch at the Ritz Carlton and that amounts to the same thing. Gina and I sat down an ordered some of the incredibly overpriced food. It was a nice restaurant, right on the beach (much closer than the hotel we were staying at). I looked over to my left and there sat:

Dave Wannstedt head coach of the Miami Dolphins. I thought about saying something but what was I going to say? “Why can’t you win a game in December?” Plus he probably comes to places like the ritz just to avoid people bugging the living crap out of him. If that was his reason for eating at the Ritz it didn’t work, people still bugged him. After I had decided to leave the guy alone someone came over and asked him to say to high to his pal cause it was his birthday or some crap like that. Gotta say it didn’t seem to bother him, he went over said “Happy Birthday” (and probably meant it) then finished his lunch. For those interested: A hamburger with fries, paid cash, kept a fat red rubber band wrapped around his wallet and talked on his cell phone a bunch.

Usually I have some links, but not today. I think I found a little freelance work and I’m going to spend some time on that. Sorry to let you down.

No Links? All Chris? That can’t be good for the long awaited:
CKS/BL tridiot rating: 129% (near maximum!)
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