The night before we left for Austin, I rushed into my house after dropping the dog off at my parents, an hour and a half away, and taking my kids to their dad’s. I was having extreme cramps in my stomach, and the pain was so bad I nearly passed out, but after I laid in bed for an hour I felt much better. I finished packing my brand new suitcase, a small rolling black Sampsonite my mom gave me for my birthday, with all my favorite clothes, most of which I’d acquired over the last year at my retail job, taking advantage of my amazing employee discount. Then we set the alarm for 5 am, and went to sleep.
We made it to the airport during what could best be described as a monsoon that had been beating down on Sacramento for 3 days. When we pulled into the long term parking lot, the clouds parted, and the rain stopped. We made it through security and on the first flight with ease, so much ease that I said, “Things are going so well.”
I spoke too soon. After we landed in Denver, Colorado, we had an hour to get food and go to the bathroom. I headed for a food stall that had pre-made salads, a preventative measure to my jacked up vacation stomach. I got my salad, and sat next to Johnny on the floor by the people-mover-conveyer-belt in front of our gate. After eating, it was time to board the plane, and we got up and walked to the queue. Johnny said, “Hey, you forgot your suitcase.”
I turned around to get it from where we were sitting, and it wasn’t there. My bag disappeared. I ran to every place I had been. Our turn to board the plane was coming up quick. I went up to the United counter at the gate, panting from sprinting up and down the terminal, I said, “My bag is lost!”
She looked at me like I said, “I have herpes.” She was bothered, and helpless, so I ran what seemed like a mile, down to the customer service counter and she told me I have to fill out a claim online. There was nothing I could do. I needed to get on the plane, with just the clothes on my body and my purse, that thankfully had my laptop. I sprinted back to the plane, and boarded. The United employee burst with schadenfreude, as she waved me away. I tried to not project all my stress onto this miserable sap.
I’m a white woman, so of course, I’m writing a letter to United explaining the injustice. The letter starts, Dear United, Most of your employees have been replaced by robots, and your remaining human workforce is only in tact so you don’t have to pay taxes on your billions of dollars of annual revenue, but could you just give these people a paycheck and have them sit in an employee lounge all day because their misery is triggering. They have no purpose, and know it. Their only sense of power is by enforcing people to pull their mask over their nose. Traveling is stressful enough. I also think you should give the woman at the customer service counter a bonus.
When we got off the flight in Austin, and walked to the car rental, I started shuffling through my purse to pull out my glasses that are usually smashed under everything, at the bottom of the bag. Not surprising at all, I lost them on the last flight.
I didn’t say, “Things cannot get any worse,” because I was now in a state of internal conflict wondering what the hell the universe was trying to tell me as I shed my favorite personal possessions on the journey from Sacramento to Austin. I walked away from that stress the best way I know how, compartmentalizing it to the tiniest space in the back of my mind.
When we checked into the hotel, the guy at the front desk was Texas nice, and we had the first of many chats. As he was sliding our key cards in the envelope, he said “We have breakfast from 6:30-9:30 in the lobby.”
Johnny and I were all smiles, about to high-five, when he noticed our unnecessary excitement and added, “Oh, It costs money.” And we laughed at our intense reaction to possible complimentary breakfast.
After vegging out in the hotel, we went to Target to get me situated. The trip was for Johnny’s performances, and I packed accordingly, to be a very pretty plus one. So when I looked at the curling irons, razors, and make up, tallying up the costs, I thought, “Maybe I can pull off the upcoming string of nights out going au natural.”
My au natural look resembles a woman who pulls over when she’s sees roadkill, to make a stew for dinner, so I just bought all the shit. I’d eventually have to replace it all anyways.
We went to the clothes section, and after seeing the price tags, I decided I should go to Forever 21, because the slight difference in Target prices to Nordstroms was not happening. I foraged the clearance rack, that had only XL or XS random articles of clothing and I picked up a pair of shorts for bedtime. I went with XS, and looked like I was wearing giant underpants made of sweatshirt material.
In the morning, we slept through breakfast because we adapted right to the vacation schedule, and stayed up till 3 am watching TV. With our busy life back in Sacramento, we took advantage of our vacation appropriately, and over the week we watched The White Lotus, finished Squid Game, and caught a few movies.
We headed for the mall, and I bought enough clothes to get me through the week. Unable to escape the Forever 21 demographic, I looked like I was going through an identity crisis, pretending I was 20 years younger. I picked up underwear at Victoria’s Secret, and the sales girl’s cold sore concerned me as she wrapped the undergarments in tissue paper, but I have no access to a washer machine, so I decided to play Herpes Russian roulette, and just rip the tags off each morning, and put on a new pair.
My looks didn’t disappointed because the second night of shows Johnny was approached by a friend, asking if we were up for some group sex! He respectfully declined, and as he retold me about it later, he started with, “You might be flattered by this, but…”
I was flattered, giving some air snaps, thinking, “We’ve still got it!” But one woman’s fantasy is another woman’s nightmare, and if I had to watch my boyfriend have sex with another woman, I would have to file my letter of resignation with him the next day, starting with, “It’s been nice knowing you, but I’d prefer if we didn’t remain friends.”
My last day of vacation is filled with melancholy, missing home but also sad to have to go back to reality. We drove out to the Chainsaw Massacre gas station, hit up the movie theater and then went for one more meal of tacos. When I went to the bathroom, like all the hip establishments we’d been to, the toilets were all-gender. I came back to the table, and announced, “We might not be having group sex, but we can always take a couples shit! If you’re up for it.”
He respectfully declined.
The next day, I packed up my Target shopping bag, and we flew home.
