Thursday, July 11, 2013

COZUMEL: October, 2005 (Part 7)

The Florida couple was supposed to know all about hurricanes. I had privately designated them our "go-to" people. Now, not only were they perusing timeshares, but her hair was braided in one of those stupid vacation hairdos with little beads.

Wait a second....

"Mrs. PR" finally showed up and did her best to reach the airline. It was hopeless. The line rang busy, busy, busy because other people had apparently watched CNN.

Next to her, "Mr. PR" struggled to draft a statement about a possible hotel evacuation. He repeatedly checked with her on phrasing.

What's the status here, anyway? William asked him.

Everything is "as usual" until the government makes an official statement.

A sunburned woman came up to William, utterly frantic.

"I'm so afraid of hurricanes. I don’t know what to do. The hotel won’t tell me what to do," she said.

You have to decide what to do, William said. The hotel isn't going to tell you what to do.

It was good advice. We should have taken it ourselves some time ago.

We decided to change our tickets at the airport. William went up to the room to pack and I returned to the dining room to make peanut butter sandwiches. I was convinced these sandwiches would save our lives no matter what happened.

A curious hostess watched as I spread peanut butter and added sliced bananas. She'd never seen that combination before. I highly recommended it, but stopped myself before pitching the value of potassium. Time was of the essence. She handed me take-out containers and gave me a cheery good-bye.

At the reception desk, a staff member clipped off our yellow hotel ID bracelets. They offered a final cocktail, but we declined and scrambled into a taxi.

No comments:

Post a Comment