By the time you’re reading this, Husband and I will be back from our vacation in the Southwest. We left New York the day Daughter returned from her birthright Israel trip and she called as we were boarding our flight to say she touched ground which made my leaving the ground less agonizing. I am among those who believe that if man was meant to fly, his name would either be Orville or Wilbur and the rest of us should just stay where we are but I’ve covered this ground before, and the air above it, in What, Me Worry? so I won’t be redundant.
At the beginning of our trip, we had just spent a night in Albuquerque at one of the popular hotel chains frequented by vacationing couples, families and business people in town for meetings, and the next morning we went down for the in-house breakfast buffet where you can make your own waffle, enjoy some cereal or eggs, etc. The place was hopping and tables were getting scarce so Husband said he’d go get some coffee and oj and set them on the first table he could find to reserve it for us.
I went over to get some fruit salad and promptly dropped the giant fruit ladle head first into the bowl. I looked around to see if anyone noticed and a businessman waiting for his toast to pop was smirking so I said, “Tell me I’m not the first person you’ve seen do this today.” He said, “No, but you’re the first to do it so completely,” and he walked over and held the bowl still while I fished the ladle out.
After my plate was filled, I looked around for the table Husband had reserved and when I spotted his coffee and juice I went over and set my plate down next to them and went to get my coffee. When I returned to our table I was surprised to see the businessman from the fruit bowl sitting in Husband’s seat drinking his juice. I stood there looking confused and then he rose from his seat and gestured to the place next to him saying, “Well, how can I be this lucky?”
I pretty much get A’s in school and people might think I’m smarter than the average bear in Jellystone Park, but about some things I am honestly stoopid so it took me a minute to figure this out since the last time I tried to pick a guy up at a hotel breakfast buffet was never. I must have looked like I look when I’m in the ladies room waving my hand over the towel machine with its ignorant motion detector that doesn’t recognize my hands, or it’s out of paper, and I’m waving my hands vertically and then horizontally and finally I’m doing the dogpaddle and I look over and see another woman watching me with an expression somewhere between pity and fear.
Finally, I realized that it was me who was at the wrong table and this businessman was standing and smiling and maybe thinking he’d get to check back into a room and I started stammering half-sentences like, “. . . oh, it’s your coffee . . . somewhere else . . . I should explain. . .” and it was all very Dharma & Greg even for me. So to illustrate my mistake I gestured across the room to where Husband might be sitting except the plate of food was in my hand and the biscuit went flying off.
Surrounding diners had observed my plight and now the biscuit was airborne and people started laughing. The businessman might have been saying something but all I wanted to do was disappear so I started walking away and stumbled right into the biscuit. Going through my mind was that I may be willing to be Dharma but I was damned if I’d be Lucy and start dribbling the biscuit across the floor to get it out of sight. So I just sort of hopped over it and kept going until I found Husband on the other side of the room drinking his coffee and juice.
“What’s going on over there?” he said, looking past me.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, some crazy woman. It’s over.”
I sat down and when I looked up his eyes were on me.
“What did you do?” he asked.
Daughter experienced a different kind of pickup when her birthright Israel group went camel riding.
At least he’s Jewish
Do you know my American cousin, Mr. Ed?
Please, you make me blush!
A girl and her camel
