~Monday~ We started our final day in Key West with a poolside breakfast. I know you’re:
Today I had the mushroom and Swiss omelet with wheat toast, and it was yummy, yummy, yummy.
We had to check out of our rooms by 11:00, and since we weren’t leaving for the airport until 4:00 or 4:30, we checked our bags at the front desk for the afternoon.
It was very warm today, and Joe and I were both sweating by the time we walked to Blue Heaven restaurant for Joe’s birthday lunch.
More than one of our friends boast this place as their favorite restaurant in Key West, and return to it time and time again, but we had terrible, terrible service, so it won’t be high on my list of places to return.
There were two good things about it, one being their Heaven’s Punch, described as “a sinful blend of Cruzan coconut, banana and pineapple rums with fresh fruit juices and a splash of fresh lime juice.”
The other was a killer, killer, killer dessert called the Banana Heaven, described as “Betty’s caramelized banana bread, bananas flamed with rum and homemade Vanilla ice cream.” OMFG. I loved every iota of it even though the ice cream was touching the banana bread.
Joe got their Key Lime Pie as a sort of birthday cake:
On the way home, we walked by the local cinema, where out in front of it, this lady was caught by an up-draft from a grate. It looked like the kind of thing that could possibly go viral.
We ended up sharing a cab to the airport with a couple from San Francisco. Joe and I sat in the back seat along with one of the guys of the couple. The other guy of the couple sat up front with our female cab driver, and the two of them had girl talk the entire way to the airport.
Some of the things we learned about her, many of which as a result of “follow-up” questions by the partner sitting up there with her included, but was definitely not limited to:
- She’s a single mother of two kids, one 3 and one 6, one boy and one girl.
- She’s divorced, but dating someone whom she never intends to marry. Some people are not good in relationships and she recognizes that she’s one of them, so she doesn’t ever want to marry again.
- The father of her children are totally active in their lives, and they visit him often, but they can never spend the night with him. (For stability reasons, not for safety reasons.)
- Her and her ex are on good terms, because they didn’t fight at all about money when they split up. She said she didn’t want the house, the car, or anything else that required payments, as she knew she wouldn’t be able to make the payments. She just wanted the kids (and although she didn’t say it, I imagine child support).
- She pictures all gay people having animals. She was right about the couple in the car with us; they have two cats and two dogs. She was shocked that neither Joe nor I had any animals. But, when we said we weren’t a couple, she said, “Oh that’s why. If you ever become a couple, you’ll get some immediately.”
- She asked the guys about their marriage in San Francisco, but she didn’t understand (and they couldn’t really articulate) what benefits it has brought them. “We got married more for emotional reasons than anything else,” the one said.
- They kept answering her questions about rights by saying, “Yes, in California, but not federally,” but they never gave her an example of a federal right they don’t have even though they are legally married in California, and it seemed that she didn’t really get at all that there is a difference.
Aside: It made me kind of sad that these guys couldn’t articulate the issues to this person, but then again, most straight people would probably be hard-pressed to articulate all the (state and federal) rights that they get by being married. All they really have to know is that they can marry the person they love and our legal system will totally accommodate them. Awwww. How sweet. [Bitter? Me?]
- She kept trying to work in having a baby as a right, saying things like, “But if you have a baby, it will be legal.” The one guy said, “Anybody can have a baby. You don’t have to be married to have a baby.”
At one point the partner up front asked three follow-up questions in a row for more details about the lady’s life, which were on the topic of how she feels about, and gets along with, her ex-husband’s new girlfriend, and the partner in the back made a signal to Joe and I with his hand that basically intimated that his partner will go on and on and on with the questions if let be.
It was at this point, I believe, that I typed out on my phone, “We can’t get to the airport fast enough,” and showed it to Joe.
When we arrived, she said, “It’s 8 bucks a piece,” even though on the window of the cab somewhere we had read that it was $5 bucks a piece. I think each of us gave her $10 and said, “Keep the change.”
We hadn’t seen someone we know from Raleigh who works at the Island House this entire trip, but when we went to check in at U.S. Scareways, he was the agent. His name is Mitch, and he just squealed when he saw us. We had a fun exchange, and he was able to switch our seats to be next to each other, which we’d been unable to do sine we planned this trip several months ago.
I duly devoided my person of everything that could possibly set of the scanner, so imagine my surprise when it went off anyway.
“You’ve been randomly selected by the machine,” the unhot man said to me as he held out his arm to block me from going forward and guided me off to the side.
I put my feet on those foot prints on the mat, with my hands up, and before he started feeling me up, he asked, “Do you have any areas on your body that are sensitive to pain?” It took everything I had not to digress on the answer to that question. “Don’t fuck with my feet,” came to mind due to recent discussions here.
When he finally finished with me and I had gathered all my stuff that Joe had been guarding, that same guy walked over to the area in which we were standing, and holding a Mac laptop said, “Anybody missing their Mac?”
I opened my laptop bag, and actually opened my Mac to make sure the one I had was mine. Later, downstairs in the gate area, they called someone’s name associated with the laptop, and presumably the guy went up to claim it.
There was a guy walking around the gate area with an emblem on his black polo shirt that was of a tall stripper with her legs spread wide, and in between them, down by her ankles, was her thong. Klassy.
Joe and I were in the front row on the right side of the plane, and we became fast friends with the flight attendant, who was a hoot, and absolutely adorable. We teased her about her spiked-heel shoes, and later asked her about parachutes that might be on board to drop us off in Raleigh, to avoid our 2.5-hour drive home once landing.
To complete our female transportation professional streak, we had a female pilot.
While on the bus to the “Long-term Parking 1” lot in Charlotte, my sister called with a quick update about plans for a joint celebration in Jacksonville this weekend for my dad’s 80th birthday and an early Mother’s Day.
Our ride home was uneventful, stopping at an Arby’s for dinner somewhere around Greensboro.
Once in Raleigh, I dropped Joe off at his place, and we drove separately down to Flex for the tail-end of karaoke and for a last couple of birthday drinks as midnight approached to officially end his birthday.
I left Joe there with Chris at midnight. That fat lady has sung. Vacation is officially over.