Finding Philly

North America » United States » New Jersey
July 10th 2018

Published: July 11th 2018

Tuesday dawned, and I was already up, taking care of last minute details I still needed to attend to: move the dishes from the dishwasher to the cabinet before Sharon needs to remind me (again), get the address of the Memorial Park where we would have my mother buried, stage the suitcases in the hall to rapidly be moved to the street when needed, and do a last-minute check of my email. I had ended my eBay store auctions a month earlier precisely because I didn’t want to be dealing with refunds and such. I had started the store to sell some coins that I no longer wanted; and, after my mother’s death I went on to sell a number of her jewelry items and artwork. I found I was now dealing with a customer disputing a charge, claiming that they hadn’t made the purchase of a coin purchased for under $25. As it turns out, the coin is one that I owned jointly with someone else (no, not Sharon); and, I’d already sent them their share of the proceeds. But now, well after my 2-week return period, they’re disputing the charges. So, I responded to the request for info, with snapshot pictures of the order and evidence of delivery, informed them that I would still accept a return (after I return from vacation) and hoped that that would be enough to satisfy them. I fully expect that they will return with a request for more info that I won’t be able to respond to in time, and just refund the money to this person, who likely, just can’t remember initiating the $23.79 charge to their credit card (thru PayPal). Or perhaps they will refund the money and say that I’m covered under their “Seller Protection Program”. I guess the high fees that they charge me should be good for something. I’ll check in with them from time to time; but, I’m not holding my breath.

So, I’m thinking to myself, “Okay, now that that’s taken care of, what else can go wrong?” Sharon hollers to me from the other room “They’ve cancelled our flight!” I curse to myself under my breath, chiding providence that mine was a rhetorical question, and I really wasn’t expecting an answer. “Didn’t you hear me. Don’t you care that they’ve cancelled our flight?” With the urgency in Sharon’s voice rising, I glance at my watch. The Super Shuttle will be picking us up in about 45 minutes (at 5:30 AM). “Oh great, they’ve re-booked us on a 6:10 AM flight!” If your 8:00 AM flight gets cancelled, why would you re-book somebody on a flight nearly two hours earlier (and send out an email at 1:00 AM to inform you that your flight’s been cancelled. Well, evidently American Airlines thinks that is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Sharon tells me to get on the line with American. The agent I get connected to sounds to me like a grandfatherly type fond of hemming and hawing and speaking in painfully slow but completely articulated thoughts. I was almost afraid that I would forget about what he was talking about before he got to the point. His first attempt to re-route us took a few minutes, and ended after much consternation with, “No, no, no, that probably won’t work. I can get you on a non-stop flight tonight at 11:00 PM.” Our flight was supposed to be non-stop, which was the main reason that we’d selected it. I agreed with the agent that we needed to arrive sooner. To make a painfully slow story shorter, twenty minutes later we had secured a one-stop flight thru Charlotte just after 9 am. I put our outside cameras up on our great room TV and confirmed that our Shuttle had not yet arrived. Sharon had had the option of ordering a Super Shuttle that was taking only us for $55 including tip; or, we could choose to be shuttled with others for $70. Guess which one Sharon chose! I turned all of the TVs off, reset the air conditioning for us being away, and started to stage the suitcases outside our garage. The Shuttle had parked in a blind spot just out of sight of our cameras; but, we later learned that it had just pulled up. Sharon made sure all the doors were locked, set up schedules for some of the interior lights, and made sure she had the days documentation handy so we’d be able to find the car rental and hotel when we arrived.

We had an uneventful trip to the airport; except, for a small bit of traffic as we approached I-15 on surface streets which our driver skillfully maneuvered around. Time wasn’t a concern because our flight was to leave an hour after our original flight. We got our bags checked in, and they were under the 50-pound limit. When we come back, that will be an issue that will cost us; because, we will be flying Spirit and they have a 40-pound limit. But that is weeks away and not to be of concern now! We decided to get breakfast at Ruby’s because we weren’t sure when we might eat again. Sharon had the Cinnamon Roll French Toast with a small bottle of water; while, I had the breakfast burrito with bacon and a liter-sized bottle of water. Sharon’s French Toast was delicious; but, she could only eat one of the three slices that were in front of her. And my breakfast burrito was also delicious, never mind that this was “airport food”: this food would be good anywhere. But at $40 for the two of us for breakfast, I guess you would expect it to be pretty darn good.

We arrive 20 minutes early in Charlotte; but, it’s not time that you can bank because we have a connecting flight. And most of that time was spent waiting on the tarmac for a gate to open up. Sharon couldn’t believe that we arrived at Gate C-13 and only needed to make our way to C-19 for our connecting flight to Philadelphia. Sharon doesn’t have many fond memories of Charlotte Airport, having been stranded there overnight on one occasion during one of her business trips. And as for connections, they almost always seem to be from one letter terminal gate to another. We counted our blessings. There wasn’t enough time to really find a place to get a meal so we settled on a bag of chips and drinks. Sharon even found me a bottle of Pellegrino.

We arrived in Philly, got our bags and took the courtesy shuttle to the Alamo lot. Check-in with the rental car company went smoothly; much, much easier than other recent experiences in Hawaii and Alaska. We’d requested a full-sized car and were offered a Nissan Altima. We thought that might be a good idea; especially when dealing with our extended array of suitcases: one-large, one-carry-on and one small-carry-on for each of us. We haven’t quite perfected the art of minimal luggage while travelling; and, as long as we have the 4-star perk of free laundry it’s unlikely that we will any time soon. But Sharon does keep saying: “John, One of these days!” This sort of reminds me of a Ralph Kramden line, “Alice, One of these days!” Do I have something to worry about. POW! The exit from the Philly Airport was something that you wouldn’t want to do without a GPS and a navigator/spotter. I’m sure that the route around the car-lot and through the airport was a circuitous one that complete more than a 360-degree rotation along a route called something like “Airport Recirculation Road”. We eventually found the right exit and made our way to our hotel about 20 miles away in New Jersey. I guess I was right to switch the airport from Newark to Philadelphia because that would have been a much longer ride. Although, a flight to Newark may not have been cancelled. Hopefully Sharon doesn’t think about that possibility to hold over me (not that she would ever do that).

We checked into the Fairfield Inn & Suites near the Memorial Parkas it was approaching 9PM. As we went through the automatic doors that opened before us. We were instantly overwhelmed by the cacophony of unsupervised teenage girls. At one point the desk clerk cleared his throat announcing, “Girls, I’m going to need to ask you to quiet down while I’m helping guests here at the desk.” The girls had completely engulfed the lobby, obscuring every available seating area and spilling over to the floor where two girls had the shrillest voices and giggles. The clerk hushed them, and the responded with whispered apologies, almost simultaneously with “Sorry.” And complete silence followed, for about ten seconds, and then a murmur of whispered giggles returned, and the crescendo of teenage voices returned steadily to full volume. We were on our way up to our room by then.

Sharon asks, “Do you want to go out and get something?” “Do you?” I ask. When she doesn’t reply I add, “I’d be just as happy to just take a shower and go to bed.” When it was clear Sharon didn’t think much of that idea, we decided to go out for a quick bite at a fast food place. Sharon was searching for “fast food” on the GPS, and I urged her to limit her search to McDonald’s. I’d been very happy with a chicken sandwich that I’d had while attending a wedding in California. A Mickey-D’s popped up less than one-half mile away, so we headed that way. Pulling in, we notice the parking lot surrounded by trucks, and lined by “Construction Zone” tape. We peer inside and there are extensive renovations underway. So, we were shifting to Plan B when I noticed the “Drive Thru Open” sign. Since we were already checked in, and we’re not far away we decide to do the Drive-Thru. Sharon is easy to order for: Burger-Plain-French Fries-Chocolate Shake… Okay, I forgot to specify Medium Chocolate Shake. I was looking for my chicken on the menu, but couldn’t find it, and it didn’t help that the menu was changing before my eyes. If you don’t know what you are looking for, the menu seems almost useless. “Is that all?” chimes the clerk. “I want a grilled chicken sandwich,” is all that I can come up with. Sharon remembered that it was an “Artisan” Grilled Chicken Sandwich. “Ummm.” I was getting the feeling that chicken is not something Mickey-D’s sells a lot of on the East-Coast. “I don’t think that we sell ‘THOSE’ any more”. I hear a muffled conference behind the scene, “Do we still have Artisan Grilled Chicken?” He gets back to us, “Uh, yes, we have an Artisan Grilled Sandwich.” I knew that they should have this, I’ve had them many times before. But in California it had a new twist, The Bacon Smokehouse Artisan Grilled Chicken Sandwich. I just didn’t know what the name of the sandwich was and I was too weary to press my luck, and was just happy to get the chicken sandwich. But, if you get the chance to try the Bacon Smokehouse version I suspect you won’t be disappointed in the crispy bacon and onion straws and sweet mustard sauce. To complicate things even further, as I’m ordering, my phone rings in Sharon’s hand, after having used the GPS to get us to the Mickey-D’s. It’s for me, and Sharon explains to my cousin Beth, that I’m busy ordering dinner at a drive thru. She was calling to confirm the time of the ceremony at the Memorial Park for my mother the next morning. Looks like it won’t be just the two of us.

We got back to the room and Sharon said, “You can eat at the desk, and I’ll sit over here.” I turn on the TV, and am thinking “Oh great”, as Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC is saying, “I don’t mean to be snarky, but I can’t help myself…” and proceeds down the rabbit hole gleefully reporting Manafort’s legal predicament. I’m finding her “reporting” a bit amusing, as I’m beginning to chow down on my sandwich. Sharon said something, and I obviously didn’t immediately respond properly, because she mumbles something else, and the hair on the back of my neck is starting to rise the way it does when you’re about to get into trouble, but you don’t know quite why yet. I’m getting mixed signals, as she gets up and grabs the straw next to me. I guess I had missed her "where did you put my straw" question. I decided to call it a night as Sharon finished up some reading and emails before she did.

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