Where Was I?

When last we left the intrepid travelers.....they were feeling the need for a mind-altering substance to bear the unbearable reality of the Francis Scott Key. We had all the ingredients for seabreezes but needed ice. R. grabbed the ice bucket and made an exhaustive search of the grounds until she gave up and went to see Norman again. “Ice machine’s down by the pool.” She goes all the way back there and is holding the bucket for an eternity….no ice. Back to Norman World. “Did you put the quarter in, (you stupid sonafabitch)." By now, R is mentally composing her letter to the FSK corporate headquarters that we have to PAY for freaking ice.

R mixed the cocktails and we had snacks. P said for us to go to dinner because she felt so sick and wanted to veg in front of the TV. That plan went out the window because the TV went off every 10 minutes and she had to turn it back on. Probably haunted.

R and I drove 73 bajillion miles until we saw our first restaurant and used the “any port in a storm” rule. R got P some crackers and teas and we were hanging out in her room when the entire room went black and silent. We sat there for a few minutes and finally felt around for the doorway. The entire complex was out. We left the door open because the heat was intense, but the mosquitoes soon found us. R checked her car for a flashlight. Nope. So there we sat in the smelly, pitch black room and visualized being coal miners. R thought she might try getting a candle at the front desk. Oh Norman….

She asked what was going on and he said a transformer blew out across the street because we had plugged in the iron. Not really the reason, but plausible given the accommodations. When she asked if they had any candles or flashlights, he said, and I paraphrase “You stupid sonafabitch, do you know where you are? This is the Francis Scott Key so go get your own stuff”

She did. She took a candle off a table in their restaurant and brought it back to us in the cave and we sat around that little table and held a séance. We renamed the place the Stevie Wonder Motorlodge and tried not to bump into things for the rest of the night.

Since we had to go to golf school in the morning, as you may all be wondering by now why we didn’t just freaking leave, we tried to set up wake up calls (I know, we are really, really slow learners) but the automated system was down. So we went to see Norman and asked if he could call our room at 6 and he said, “You SSOAB, call the automated system” Us, “We did that and it’s not working” and he said, “You SSOAB, this is the FSK, stay up all night if you want to get up on time.”

So R tries in the complete darkness to set the room alarm clock. We go to sleep and I am awakened by R all showered and towel-headed saying, “Ok, get up, it’s just about 6.” And I said “Really?? It’s so dark.” So I get in the shower and R calls P to wake her and to make this long story longer, R mistakenly set the alarm for 4:30 because she couldn’t read her wrist watch correctly in the dark. Well, so we were early. We stumbled into Layton’s Family Restaurant which spirited a giant white sprinkled donut above its sign. The waitress, also known as Happiness Incorporated made us feel as if the family in “family restaurant” was the Manson Family. We had tea that wasn’t tea, toast that wasn’t toast and service that wasn’t with a smile.

We headed out to Deer Run Golf Course to meet our golf instructor. We got there and found out we were the only students there for the 3 days, as everyone else had cancelled because of the hurricane. And the weather was beautiful. We felt our luck was changing…we were going to have our instructor all to ourselves.


To be continued.