I'm Leaving On a Jet Plane

It's the middle of the night, and you can't decide what's worse.

Is it the awkward angle of the seat, the fact that you can't stretch your legs out in front of you or needing to use the restroom but not wanting to wake the sleeping passenger in the aisle seat next to you?

"I'll never take a red-eye flight again!" you scream soundlessly in your mind, and you really, really mean it this time, because not only have you been packed like a sardine into an oversold flight where there wasn't room to store your backpack in the overhead bin, but this relic of the Cold War doesn't even have a video screen with free selections.

Sure it has some wifi hookup for your smartphone available, but as a relic of the Cold War yourself you couldn't figure out how to download the program and finally gave up when you realized you'd have to pay to view anything decent anyway.

It's time to take a breath.

Lewis and Clark spent months crossing the US wilderness in leaky boats and on foot, encountering unknown dangers at every turn.

Covered wagons bounced over rocks and ruts all the way across the rugged plains, constantly under threat from Apache braves who were pissed off about these pale-faced immigrants building fences in their former hunting grounds.

The Pony Express, riding as fast as they could on strong horses changed regularly at strategically placed stops, took well over a week to cross from coast to coast.

Even driving 2,700 miles in an air-conditioned sedan listening to SiriusXM can feel pretty taxing.

So, when you think about it, any inconveniences on a six hour flight from Los Angeles to Miami, put into perspective, are marginally insignificant.

"But I want my comfy bed and pillow now!"

Finally, you wake up from that nightmare, and you're hailing a taxi, paying the flat rate of $27 to go to the cruise port, and a couple of hours later you're eating a delicious lunch or lounging poolside, or both.

All's well that ends well, and it's that blissful arrival that you remember when you're weighing the price of a pre-cruise hotel stay in one of the greatest cities in the world (plus transfers) against taking an all-night flight to catch the cruise.

But wait.  I remember.  "Never again!"

Until next time.

For Julie and me, the next time came on February 6, prompted by American Sky Miles that would let us take the red-eye to Miami the night before our cruise for only 12,500 miles plus $5.60.

Dang, that's pretty hard to resist, even if flying back would cost twice that many miles.

"All my bags are packed.  I'm ready to go."

All I needed to do was change from my scruffy jeans and pullover sweatshirt with a hole in the sleeve into my Polo shirt, corduroy sports coat and big boy pants for the plane ride.

No problemo.

Our passports and printed boarding passes had been put in our carry-on bags days earlier, along with medicines, books and bathing suits, just in case our baggage decided to strike out on its own to someplace other than Miami.

No need to wait for the Bell Cab driver to call and say, "I'm standing here outside your door."

We turned off the lights and locked our condo, took the secure elevator down to the lobby and headed out to the sidewalk, where our cab arrived exactly on schedule to double park in front of our driveway long enough to throw our suitcases in the back.

Sure, we had a red-eye flight ahead of us, but it was a beautiful evening.

Julie and I exchanged clever repartee about the evening sights along Pacific Coast Highway, because like reverse-vampires, we rarely go out after dark.

"Do you want to use cash or credit card?" I asked, confident that my wallet was crammed with 24 twenty-dollar bills and three credit cards that could handle anything.

"We might as well earn some more air miles," said Julie.

Allow me to digress for a moment here.  Many times, when Julie and I have walked from our condo on a trip to CVS Drugs or Smart and Final, she will ask if I have my wallet, receiving my standard reply.

"I'm a man, aren't I?"

On my way out the door, I ritually touch my left hand pocket for my cell phone, my right hand pocket for my keys and my hip pocket for my wallet, unless I'm wearing cargo pants, in which case my wallet is in a thigh pocket.

Sure, I might have to go back to get my baseball cap, and then return again to get my sunglasses, but I'm a man who always has pockets for his keys, phone and wallet, damn it.  I don't need no stinking purse.  That lack of purse ranks right up there with being able to pee standing up and never wearing uncomfortable shoes as one of the great perks of being a man.

On this particular evening, when I reached for my wallet....

NOT in my back pocket.

It must be in my key pocket, where I put it sometimes if I will be sitting a long time.

Not there.

With my cell phone?

Not there.

I frantically look on the seat behind me and on the floor of the dark cab.

My wallet is nowhere to be found!

Not only does my wallet have all of my money, credit cards and drivers license, it also has my CLIA card that I'm required to present to participate in my travel agent education programs.

But now we're at Terminal 4, and the taxi driver is waiting for me to take my luggage while Julie pays using her credit card.

We have just over two hours until our flight leaves, and we live about a half hour away from the airport.

Should I double back, paying essentially a triple cab fare and possibly miss the flight?

What if my wallet is in the gutter outside our condo building or in the elevator?

What if it is in my comfy chair and our son Jay decides to stay at our vacant beach condo for the weekend, bringing over some Albanian swimsuit model who finds my wallet, innocently tucks it into her purse thinking it must be hers and then flies back to Albania without ever mentioning it, or at least ever mentioning it in English so that Jay understands?

"It's in your Levis back home," Julie said confidently.

"But if it's not, the best I can hope for is that someone takes the money and returns the wallet. Worse, they could max out my cards and establish new lines of credit before we get back in two weeks."

"You just forgot to move it to your other pants."

"But..."

So, as I sat in that uncomfortable seat with cramped legroom in a red-eye flight that would have a three hour layover in Atlanta at about 4 AM (I don't remember in which time zone), I fretted about my wallet.

We survived Atlanta and finally arrived in Miami around 10 AM, and since it was really too early to go to the cruise port anyway, we decided to seek out an ATM machine at the airport so we could replenish the travel cash that I had left at home (hopefully).

We dragged our rolling suitcases down a series of hallways to about the most unlikely ATM location we could imagine, deep in the bowels of the administration section of the airport.  Actually, there was an entire Bank of America there, but it being Sunday, the bank and surrounding area were entirely deserted.

Julie withdrew $200 with her ATM card, and we meandered back to find the taxi stand.

Our driver barely spoke English, but he knew exactly where to find Celebrity Eclipse for the standard $27 flat rate, and we were soon processed through the efficient and modern Miami Cruise Terminal and welcomed aboard the gorgeous Celebrity Eclipse.

"Should I cancel my credit cards?"

"And have my only credit card cut off too? Definitely not.  Your wallet is in your jeans."

Beginning right then, we enjoyed an amazing Southern Caribbean cruise aboard a wonderful floating resort that in many ways doubles as a floating museum.

After a couple of days at sea, I was out of my habit of constantly checking my smart phone for messages, having switched it to airplane mode to use only as a camera.  I stopped touching my back pocket checking for my wallet.

When we returned home a couple of weeks later, I immediately carried my suitcase upstairs and, before unpacking, checked the dresser for my old Levis.  Sure enough, tucked in the back pocket was my wallet, with $480 still in it.  By the way, Celebrity thankfully cut me some slack on showing my CLIA card to learn more about their ship.

Truly, all's well that ends well.

Did I mention that after boarding our return flight, listening to the seat belt and life vest pitch and taxiing toward the runway, the jet plane stopped, and the pilot came on the PA to say that we had a mechanical malfunction.

After a detour to fix it, maintenance determined there was no quick fix.  We all had to grab our carry-on luggage, get off the plane and race across the airport by foot, elevator, moving sidewalk and Skytrain.  When we completed our game of follow the leader (which humorously went off the right path briefly requiring a U-turn) and reached a new gate, we all stood around waiting for a couple of hours like cattle awaiting slaughter, because standing around rather than looking for a seat always makes the time pass faster.

After a relaxing Southern Caribbean cruise, however, Julie and I were ready to accept that changing planes was "fantastic," remembering the wisdom of Zig Ziglar, who said there were only three reasons why an airline would cancel a flight: bad weather, pilot incapacity or mechanical problems.

If any of those three took place, would we really want to be in the air?  No.  It was fantastic to be temporarily grounded rather than fearing for our lives five miles off the ground.

And yes, if it had been our red-eye flight going to Miami, and it had meant we might have missed our connection in Atlanta and subsequently potentially have missed the cruise,  it could have been a disaster, though fortunately we did make it to the cruise on time, as I previously mentioned, and also had purchased Celebrity travel insurance, which would have covered such an instance.

As I said before, all's well that ends well.

But never again!

Remember, Wes: always fly in a day or two early for a cruise.  And bring your wallet!