@missy @rambo @lyxzen
This is a story about the honeymoon my wife and I almost didn't get to...It is a long one but I like to be detailed, paint a build up for the reader and then continue as telling it like a story rather than a quick blog. I hope you enjoy it, would LOVE to be considered for the Front Page...@missy & @rambo & @lyxzen
I have had many lessons in life that have changed me, a few that might be construed as a complete life altering event I suppose. However, I would say that most of the life lessons I have learned have been more just “next time plan better” or a simple dose of “learn from your own dumb-ass mistakes!” This is about one of many mistakes that I have made and has taught me a lesson as well as changed me in the sense to be more aware of what is going on when traveling. Simply put, one seemingly little tiny mistake can mean everything to the success of venturing off from the comfort zone of your home city.
That being said; my wife, Tonia, and I got married on May 14th, 1994 at 2:16pm, with a gloriously beautiful outdoor setting on the State Capital grounds in our hometown of Sacramento, CA. Together we had owned up to all of the mostly traditional pomp and circumstance that is normally granted to one of middle class nature and can afford it. We had pulled out all the cliché wedding tricklets; wedding party being delivered upon horse drawn carriages, Tonia had on the full lacy hand beaded white wedding dress finished with a majestically long flowing train, sinfully black silk tuxedos and since it was spring the grounds were spilling with a vast array of colorful and quite fragrant flowers.
Not to mention the beautiful self-made center pieces and party favors, artfully decorated wedding cake and a set of professional photographers zipping in and out like a pair of cheetahs on the plains. We also saw to it to have a creepy game show style DJ with his greasy slick back hair and looking like he just came from filming an adaptation of Grease, who insisted on spinning hot hits from Anne Murray and The Bangles much to our dismay, but I will say he exquisitely and seamlessly kept the party moving in a graceful fashion. The chic dining hall at The Shot of Class restaurant in Downtown Sacramento is where we had our reception, lavish in its own right with their majestically tall ceilings, Grecian colonnades, Italian marble flooring and 1920’s era styling throughout.
During the reception, we received a VERY lucrative unanticipated money dance, an obscene amount of gifts as well as all of the family and friends that we could possibly stand…It was just magnificent, magical and ridiculously fun and I will always remember that day. I was involved with every aspect of planning it right down to the favors and invitations and I was happy to do it, how many men do you know who actually enjoy that kind of Cinderella fantasy shit.
All of this was planned very carefully and meticulously, it took almost a year and a half to have it all come together for this one day that was all ours and ours alone. Amazingly, everything about that event went off without any major issues, it was by all standards a perfect day for us and everyone involved.
The honeymoon that was to follow immediately after the wedding was planned just as meticulously as the wedding itself. Reservations were made, airline tickets were purchased, half of our cash was traded to American Express traveler’s cheques (yes, the spelling is correct, check it out; no pun intended) the limo was reserved to take us to the San Francisco International Airport (aka, SFO) so that we may embark to our perfect continually cliché tropical honeymoon thus beginning our new lives as husband and wife and consummating what has taken place for years as I am sure both our parents believed we were just living in sin and not just on a trial run with a long time engagement. It seemed so easy and as you are reading this, one would think as though we really had our shit together. I mean after all, we did not use a wedding planner for as big of a production we had. We didn’t even feel the need to consult a travel agent when we made our arrangements for our ostensibly well thought out tropical destination of fun and sun.
To this day, I will say that this trip has shaped the very foundation of our lives together and will live in infamy with us for as long as we are alive and well. It would be, unbeknownst to us, a true test of our character, our seemingly unspoiled relationship. Or, one would say a trial by fire or maybe in the biblical sense, the trials of Job ring a bell if you believe in that sort of thing.
It all started at 2:30am, the early morning after our perfect wedding, with a knock (cocka-fuckin’-doodle-doo!) at the door of our apartment, which was strategically located right across from the Cal Expo Amphitheatre on Exposition Blvd just southeast of Downtown Sacramento. This was so that we may partake in listening to the amazing outdoor summer concerts at the amphitheater…FOR FREE! After all, how else were we going to afford this wedding of ours? That knock at the door was our limo driver here to pick us up on the bright and early. As it were, our delightfully young wedding party had decided for us that we would all go to our humble apartment with us for a while and have a little after party of our own.
It was also decided, not sure by whom, that Tonia and I would attempt to get some sleep before we leave on our honeymoon trip. Knowing this, we thought it would be a great idea to take all of our packed bags and have them all lined up at the door so that when it came time for our driver to whisk us blissfully away, we would be all set and ready to go. We even changed to sleep into our comfortable sweats and t-shirts so we can just get up and go, after all, we were going to be on a plane(s)for 13 hours, so all we had to do was wake up enough just to get our butts downstairs, into that limo and ride that stretch black chariot for the next hour and a half to SFO.
We had a flight that was to leave at 6:25am for Miami with a stop in Phoenix to pick up presumably more vacationing stragglers, then switch carriers and leave from Miami to Gregorio Luperon International Airport in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. So with that aforementioned knock at the door, came the onset of a slight panic. We were ever so non-lovingly woken up by our friends since we failed to set the appropriate time on our alarm clocks. We rushed around getting some final touches franticly doing the expedited version of a “normal” routine. We then grabbed our bags we so smartly put by the door and paraded down the stairs to our own elongated glossy black Lincoln Continental in waiting to launch us into our paradise week of enlightment.
Once we clumsily lugged down our well packed beige floral 6 piece tapestry luggage set, (we were young so still learning to pack frugally) we passed it off to our driver Chris who tucked them in nice and neat like a game of Jenga in the back of the once spacious trunk. We were then helped into what was to be our mobile ediphous for the next 95 minutes. Chris asked if we wanted to partake in a deliciously bottle of dry champagne, we said ‘OF COURSE!’ then we were well on our way.
I would say about 2 ½ sips of champagne each later we were both passed out and stretched out as far as that 12 person limo would let us. Letting that poor bottle of crisp bubbly go to waste…such a shame...AND the worst part was no hot erotic limo fucking either!
We arrived to the 24 hour bustling SFO and woke from small catnaps and the limo driver pulled up to the passenger drop off area making us feel like a million bucks. It's that feeling when you roll up like that at a big time international airport like SFO, knowing a lot of pretty important, influential people usually show up in limos like this. I have always loved this airport because it was totally how you picture a super busy metropolitan airport. Even as early as we were there, you could see that there were people everywhere. They were walking around, some it would seem as though they had no real reason for being there but still there. Sky Cap running about helping with bags and since this was before automated check-in, the ticketing agents at nearly every airline were full on busy and lines winding through like a maze lovingly meant for a rat.
The driver opens the door for us, helps my newly wedded wife out of the car like a gentleman should, goes around to the back and retrieves our luggage from the trunk for us. I am about to reach for what is now a mocked unfortunate piece of accessory for men, (now don’t laugh)….the ever popular, can never go out of style, black leather fanny pack. Right at that moment, time as I knew it, stood still when just then I had come to realize that I did not have it.
(Fuuuuuuuuuuck!) This glorious soft piece of unisex fashion accessory was all that was holy to us, especially in this particular situation because…are you ready for it…all, not some, all of our cash, travelers cheques and my newly wedded wife’s always needed extra lip chap was in that fanny pack. The cash was all that we had got from the money dance at the wedding and the rest of our funds were in AMEX traveler’s cheques.
So there we were, standing at the airport with all of our stuff at 4:30 in the morning with only 2 hours till our flight was expected to leave, no money, no traveler’s cheques and we are 90 miles from home with no means of personal transportation. Not even a dime to tip the wary blurry eyed limo driver, who at this point just felt sorry for us more than he was thinking about the kind of money he could make from a couple of punk early twenty somethings who are now seemingly stranded at the SFO airport. Here, right here and now was our first major catastrophic event to test us as a newlywed couple. Being the level headed independent thinking young adults that we were, we knew exactly what we had to do at this point…we called Tonia’s mommy, aka, The Mama. She always knows what to do.
So we begrudgingly heaved all of our stuff inside, trying very hard not to blame each other for what has just taken place. We then located a now known anomaly that was called a pay phone, and we made a collect call to The Mama (again, not a dime, hence the “we are losers” collect call). She sleepily answered the phone and asked if everything was ok, I proceeded to explain how everything was not and what the situation had become. As I finished explaining in detail what has transpired, I am thinking in the back of my mind that it’s going to be ok because The Mama will work her magic and know exactly what to do. Now, do you know what her immediate answer was? “Well, so what are you going to do now?”...GOD DAMN IT!
This was most certainly NOT the answer I was looking for! I nearly ripped that gigantically disturbing pay phone off the wall in frustration because the one person that I decided to call to make sure we can get an answer from immediately for at least the first step and the best thing that comes out of her mouth is asking me “what am I going to do now”. It’s kind of like getting wrongly accused of something, arrested, you get your one phone call and that one special person that you decide to call says that they are busy right now but they’ll try to call you back later.
Now, in her defense I was probably a little panicky being 21, freshly married and I don’t want to let my new wife down like I feel like I already had. I wasn’t really thinking about the fact that it was 4:30 in the morning and expecting that 1-800- I’ve got all the answers at any given time was on the line. I can picture her with her sassy slept-on salt & peppered hair-do and terribly sleepy eyes just trying to not wake up fully. However, after debating our situation a little further, and some more of the sleepy was out of her raspy voice, we finally came to the consensus that the first thing I needed to do was to get with a ticketing agent.
I think it goes without saying that it was no longer a matter of, are we going to make our flight? It was more of, we are going to miss this flight and we need to look ahead to find the next flight out, rebook it and continue on with our plight, which was now changed to be at the newly appointed time of 8:40 am. It was now 5:00 am, we had 3 hours and 40 minutes before our next scheduled flight to see about getting some cash into our hands. The ticketing agent suggested there is an AMEX ATM type machine that will dispense traveler’s cheques and you can report lost or stolen cheques and have them reissued. Hmmm…all you need are the AMEX cheque numbers and you can replace them. Rrrright, all you need are the numbers…hmmmm…I really wished that somebody would have told me that…wait...shit...someone did. After turning around from the oddly and exceedingly helpful ticketing agent, I wished at that very moment I would have listened to that damned AAA agent that helped me complete my traveler’s cheques transaction way back in Sacramento two weeks ago. She had told me to write down those numbers and keep them separate from your wallet that you keep on your person (or in this case, the fun filled mysteriously missing fanny pack). Well ain’t life just a fuckin' peach, seems like everyone is there to be your mother and we as devoted sons of anarchy just keep choosing not to listen.
I then was back on the Jurassic era pay phone using loser collect (again) to my now more awake and fully caffeinated new mother-in-law to explain what is going on now and that I needed her to go to our apartment to locate the said fanny pack and find those cheque numbers so that we can have some sort of currency. At this point we had nothing to even buy a cup of coffee with. Tonia was feeling a little defeated and I think more then happy to let me clean up the mess that we (yes, we) had made as she was attempting to sleep with our luggage on a row of one of those blasphemous black airport chairs that have handles at every god damn seat making it necessary to discourage any one from even remotely getting comfortable.
As time was steadily going by, we were faced with the fact that we may not get to our rebooked flight and I find myself at the ticket counter once more. That being said, because it is almost impossible to get the same person twice with any predicament you might be in, I am explaining once again the morning’s events and seeing what can be done about an alternative plan. The agent graciously found another flight for us but it was not going to leave until 10:35 pm that night. So this persons plan was to just have us checked in with our bags going to the original rebooked flight so we save time with that and then we can be dutifully expeditedand on our way to catch this 8:40 am flight and maybe not have to wait for the 10:35pm flight.
We have now approached the witching hour of 7:00 am, I have received the proper info from The Mama and I am now heading towards the AMEX ATM to get my new cheques and wouldn’t ya know! AsI am inputting all the information that is needed, I press the final ENTER button and now this machine is telling me “out of order at this time and cannot complete this transaction, please try again at a later time.”...Seriously?! What the actual fuck? I am instantly on that loser collect call pay phone once again with The Mama to dream up something else and its only then do we decide, “why did we not think of this before?” we can call Western Union. All we have to do is make one call and the money will be sent in one set of swift keyboard strokes and we will resume our now only slightly delayed romantic honeymoon, problem solved! You know, if only it were that easy.
Now I’m not sure if many people know this, but did you know that at that time, in the whole San Francisco International Airport, one of the biggest and busiest airports in the US is blessedly free of anything that resembles a Western Union.In fact, the closest Western Union is actually in a little suburb of San Francisco called San Bruno inside of a Raley’s supermarket, which geographically is only about 5-10 minutes away from SFO or about 4 miles. Now, San Francisco, at 7:30/8:00 in the morning changes everything in the world of timing. It will not be just a quick little 5-10 minute jaunt over to the fabulously located Raley’s that this Western Union compound is hiding out at, noooo it is going to be maybe about a half hour to get there and another half hour to get back plus whatever time it takes just to get our cash. So this means we are going to once again have to rebook and wait until the next late night flight to get ourselves out of dodge.
By this time we were emotionally wrecked and we were also without any kind of luggage or toiletries as per instructions from our last helpy helper ticketing agent who made the eager suggestion to go ahead and check us in for our flight, scheduled for 8:35am, ahead of time to “hurry things along.” I will say this, we were kind of tired of schlepping all of our crap with us from one point to the next and even pre-9/11, SFO had no lockers to put anything in anyway. We had nothing with us to do anything about a freshen up of any kind, Tonia was so cute with her leftover big up do from the wedding it had been cemented with so much full hold hair spray and mouse that even after it had had been slept on a couple of times it had only been slightly disheveled but I am very sure that I was looking like hot mess though. There really wasn’t any point in getting a hotel at this juncture either because we had been at the airport already for about 5 hours so what’s a few more hours to wait, right?
Although, the mere thinking of a bed to rest on with clean sheets and a nice hot shower would have been nice considering we neither one of us has showered since the day before. I am sure we were looking and smelling not as good as we think we were. So since we decided on this notion of no hotel, let’s just say that we painted that airport about 10 times over out of shear boredom. We got to watch a couple of shift changes. They should really think about putting in movie theatres or a bowling alley in all these big airports, because I can only sit still with a book or a magazine for so long before I get antsies in my pantsies.
With all of our so called issues behind us, at this point it has come to my attention that the time is now 9:35pm and the moment that we have been waiting for since 2:30 this morning is FINALLY happening…we are boarding our plane for our honeymoon. Little did we know that this fun little adventure had only just begun. The actual honeymoon part on that deliciously tropical island is a tale in itself and added additional, bonus compatibility tests and trials, if you will. This side of the story is entirely different and will have to tell that part later.
For now, as a life lesson to be learned being the young couple that we were and thought we had best intentions by governing ourselves, not double and triple checking what we need from the stand point of travel. Especially with international travel, it is just absolutely a major part of having a successful event, wherever you may go. Was it the end of the world? No, it sure wasn’t. Was it a game changer for our marriage? After all, it really was truly and unequivocally my fault and my fault alone. I was the one that decided to take charge of the money and I really screwed it up. But alas, it was not a game changer for us. We did not blame each other for what happened. We did not dwell on the fact that our one and only honeymoon that we planned on having was just wronged from the start. Spending the 15 hours of time together in an airport 12 hours after we were married with our first self-inflicted hurdle then figuring it out together (with some assistance, mind you) really made us that much stronger from this point on.
...I will work on a part II for this if people end up liking it...because believe it or not, the honeymoon didn't get much better, lol
