When life give you lemons..

This was one hell of a one night trip.

I should’ve known this was going to be a bad trip when I drove up to my usual parking lot when I see a sign that said ‘Lot Full’. I proceeded to 3 more lots with the same sign. Finally, I get to a lot that was miles away with a few spots open.

Thing did get better as I was in first class of a very nice international plane. There was enough room for me to lay all the way down like a bed. Yea, that’s how nice the first class has it. Although I was feeling guilty and hating all the whiny first class passengers. Seriously, I’ve never seen people act so damn whiny in coach.

We got to about 12 feet from the terminal when the rain and lightning really started to come down. Because they didn’t want to endanger the ground crew, we waited for 2.5 hours on the plane before the opened the door! That’s right. 12 feet from the gate. Waited 2.5 hours.

It got a bit better as I checked into an insanely nice hotel. It was so nice the very accomodating attractive young lady that checked me in walked me to the door of my hotel. I wasn’t sure what’s going on. Was she coming in with me? Am I getting a nightcap? Is this why this room was so damn expensive? Hmm..

Sadly no, but it was still excellent service. The room too, was most excellent.

Check out this bed. Swanky.

Sadly, I was working till 3am and only got to enjoy that super nice bed for only 3 hours. The meeting in the morning went off just fine. When we got to the second meeting, the meeting that I was actually there for, they informed me that it was going to be cancelled because the team was running late.

I was actually quite excited about this. This meant that I would be able to catch an earlier flight and make it in time for my ultimate game. It was a bummer that I flew out here for nothing though but nonetheless, I’ll be back early. Yay!

I went to the airport and I was put on standby for the earlier flight. This is when all the bad started.

I was number 14 on the list. They put the first 12 on the plane. So I missed this flight. My flight wasn’t going to go for another 3 hours. I checked the schedule a few hours later, and it had been delayed an hour, then 2 hours. The final straw came when they cancelled my flight along with sever dozen other flights due to the weather in the Midwest and the South.

There was a mad scramble of people trying to rebook their flights. I talked to the travel agent that we use who wasn’t able to book me on anything on any other airline, nor was she able to find me anything the next day. The earliest flight she could get me on was Sat. afternoon. So instead of getting home early by 3 hours, I was going to get home 2 days late.

Due to the mass cancellation, all the hotels around the airport were booked as well. For some reason, almost all the hotels in the city were booked too. The cheapest hotel the travel agent could find was around $500. I was not about to stay at a place that expensive without some approvals.

I ended up calling my friend A & R. They lived closed to the airport so I thought that might be a good idea. Luckily for me, they said it was ok for me to stay with them. They’re cool like that.

The rest of Thursday night was a bit of a blur. As I mentioned before, I had 3 hours of sleep and I haven’t really had anything to eat. So while waiting for A & R to get home, I went to a nearby bar.

I think most of you who have drank with me will attest that I’m no light weight when it came to drinking. I had a couple of drinks before R got back from work. Then we had a couple together before heading home.

I had no recollection of getting home at all.

Luckily and unluckily for me, I can do my job anywhere there’s a high speed connection. So I work all day on Friday. Sad I know. So boring. I believe a certain Ko and I are switching roles.

Friday night got a bit more fun. A makes jewelry (awesomely pretty jewelry if I do say so myself) and she had a show at an event called ‘Girls night out’. Basically, it’s 2 floors of vendors so the girls can shop. The girls pay $20 to get in and it’s all you can drink. As she described it to me, it’s just wall to wall drunk women. Women to men ratio was about 400 to 1.

Now those are odds I can work with.

As she warned though, it’s insanely annoying. I threw her warning back in her face. Damn it, I need to explore it for all men out there. Is it the paradise we dream of or the nightmare A warned of?

I was all proud when I went into downtown from queens using the train. I know it’s not a big deal, but it was still a bit exciting to be doing it all by myself.

I met R at work and we went to grab some food and drinks before heading to the ‘Girl’s night out’. Walking into the place, it seems like some secret club that men have never seen. Girls everywhere, drinking and cutting up with each other. Not having a care in the world cause they’re not thinking of impressing some dude.

At first the whole thing was quite amusing. That lasted about 10 min. Just as A warned, the novelty of it wore off and it’s just a bunch of drunk women being loud. Being that I’m old and bitter, I was just generally unamused.

Since it’s a Girls thing, they catered the drinks to the population they were serving. The menu involved sweet drinks that were blue, red and orange. There was also coffee liquor (which was surprisingly good), and bud light. Wow, you’d think that selection would almost make me not drink.

It was still fun hanging out with A & R despite the women. Afterwards we went out for some real drinks. There was darts, pool, and meat on sticks (not a metaphor) involved. Good time for all.

I’m lucky those nights were there to salvage my crappy days. I left Saturday afternoon. There’s a funny story about how I amused a 7 yr old for 2.5 hours that involved paddy cakes, some other hand slapping game, drawing, writing a letter to her mom, and painting her finger nails with a highlighter (which she then returned the favor) during the flight.

Maybe another time. Just glad to be home.