A Small Victory
"So this is where Steinbrenners come to die." I thought.
I am in a cab barely air-conditioned in the 85 degree thousand percent humidity torture that passes for November weather on the Gulf coast of Florida. My cabbie vaguely resembles a young Osama Bin Laden and smells of old socks. We roll through palm trees, strip malls, strip malls and strip malls. Eventually we turn off onto a road flanked by single story warehouses, self-storage joints and the odd bowling alley. At the end of a two lane road adjacent to a swamp is a state of the art office campus. This is where TV ratings come from.
Time passes, meetings are held, tours are given and eventually the official work part of the day ends. We wind up the night watching the Jets beat the Patriots at the BW3 that shares my hotel's parking lot before having a final nightcap at Applebee's, the only bar in the vicinity open past midnight. Morning comes, a brief work breakfast meeting and off to the airport.
It is fortunate that I brought Jonathan Miles' excellent first novel "Dear American Airlines" with me . That book is a guy reflecting on his life in the form of a letter for a refund request for a cancelled flight. As we used to say in our fifth grade book reports, "It is a very good book and I would recommend it to all my friends." Appropriate too, since my departure would be delayed two hours and further delayed circling Newark airport. Nothing like some time alone in the air travel system to make you reflect about where you've gone wrong in your life.
Still, I try to make the best of airport delays in the easiest way possible, i.e. heading to the nearest terminal bar. In the Tampa terminal used by Continental Airlines this happens to be called the Jose Cuervo Tequileria.
I wandered into the JCT (the acronyms are for you, Coach Ray) at around 11:30am looking down and was immediately asked for ID by the twenty something female bartender. "I can show you my bald spot or my license" I said cleverly. She smiled that tight smile of someone who has heard crap like that too many times. Already she hated me. I handed over my license. She did what everyone else who checked my ID has done lately which is do a double take between the picture on the license and the face sitting atop my portly middle-aged body. "Old picture" I said. I took the license back and thought about how many city miles have gone onto my visage since I last took a new driver's license picture. The baggy-eyed, receding hairline- framed creased melon I've got now still bears enough of a resemblance to that picture to get me through now but I imagine I should get a new picture taken soon. Well, at least I'm having a good time getting those bags and lines, right?
I plopped myself at the end of the U-shaped bar with an empty seat to my left and a storage cabinet to my right. To the left of the empty seat is another Newark-bound sufferer who keeps asking the bartender to switch the TV from ESPNNews to CNBC. Jesus, like airports aren't depressing enough this knucklehead wants to watch the world economy disintegrate while he munches some quesedillas.
I have a beer and head to get rid of the coffee that the beer wants to replace in my system and when I come back I find the empty seat occupied by a gentleman who manages to look both nerdy and dopey at the same time. I ascertain from his conversation with the bartender who hates me that he's from Texas and a regular at this particular airport watering hole. He has shoved my book and glasses a good 6 inches to the right and moved my chair hard against the storage cabinet and he doesn't seem particularly concerned about how he's invaded my personal space. He orders nachos with "everything but the meat" and engages wants-to-watch-CNBC- Jersey-Guy in conversation whereupon it is revealed that he is a government contractor with something to do with the oil industry. Well, that explains the overwhelming sense of entitlement that allowed him to shove my possessions and chair out of his way.
Wants-to-watch-CNBC-Jersey-Guy gets up to hit the head and Texan-government-contractor-asshole leans over to twentysomethng-bartender-that-hates-me and says of WTWCNBCJG "He's from Jersey?"
"I know, he doesn't seem abrasive enough right?" says TSBTHM.
A seat opens up toward the middle of the bar to the left of the current cast of characters and I move there and order nachos (chicken, if it matters) and another beer for lunch. I eat, pay my bill and decide to leave the Northeast-hating bartender and government sponge (WTWCNBCJG has already quit the scene) and check the departures board.
My flight has been pushed back another half hour.
The solution here is obvious. I decide to check out the other hot spot in Terminal A which is Sam Snead's Tavern. A golf-themed outpost in a Florida airport, imagine that.
I place myself at the bar and it feels less odd to be ID'd in this place since I'm well below the median age of the other patrons. I guess the Tequileria is where the young, hip and delayed hang while the old white guys all flock to the safe womb of a golf themed establishment. I order a double Maker's on the rocks to ensure I'll have sufficient nap fuel for the flight and sip it while the bartender exults over his lemon and lime cutting device. It's one of those things where you put the whole fruit in, push down and it slices it into even slices ready to use as drink garnishes. "Whoever invented this is a genius" he says to everyone with a smile. I nod sagely and sip my bourbon.
A waitress comes up to the bar and calls in an order from a table that includes two Arnold Palmers. I wondered if such a thing was a faux pas in a Sam Snead named establishment, but then I wasn't sure if the two were contemporaries or had a rivalry or anything and then I thought I didn't give a crap. How that even made it into my notebook is a mystery. Must've been the bourbon.
Speaking of the bourbon, I had finished it and was chewing on the ice cubes when I noticed I probably had enough time for a short beer before boarding. I order and the friendly bartender says "You can get a shot of anything with that for only three bucks." In a remarkable show of self-restraint I declined as I wanted to nap, not be unconscious for eight hours. I drink up, pay the bill and luckily, my flight is delayed no further on the ground. We do wind up circling for a bit but I made it home slightly earlier that I would've if I had worked a full day in NYC and had to commute home so it was still a win, just barely. You take your victories when and where you can in this life, no matter how small they are.
I am in a cab barely air-conditioned in the 85 degree thousand percent humidity torture that passes for November weather on the Gulf coast of Florida. My cabbie vaguely resembles a young Osama Bin Laden and smells of old socks. We roll through palm trees, strip malls, strip malls and strip malls. Eventually we turn off onto a road flanked by single story warehouses, self-storage joints and the odd bowling alley. At the end of a two lane road adjacent to a swamp is a state of the art office campus. This is where TV ratings come from.
Time passes, meetings are held, tours are given and eventually the official work part of the day ends. We wind up the night watching the Jets beat the Patriots at the BW3 that shares my hotel's parking lot before having a final nightcap at Applebee's, the only bar in the vicinity open past midnight. Morning comes, a brief work breakfast meeting and off to the airport.
It is fortunate that I brought Jonathan Miles' excellent first novel "Dear American Airlines" with me . That book is a guy reflecting on his life in the form of a letter for a refund request for a cancelled flight. As we used to say in our fifth grade book reports, "It is a very good book and I would recommend it to all my friends." Appropriate too, since my departure would be delayed two hours and further delayed circling Newark airport. Nothing like some time alone in the air travel system to make you reflect about where you've gone wrong in your life.
Still, I try to make the best of airport delays in the easiest way possible, i.e. heading to the nearest terminal bar. In the Tampa terminal used by Continental Airlines this happens to be called the Jose Cuervo Tequileria.
I wandered into the JCT (the acronyms are for you, Coach Ray) at around 11:30am looking down and was immediately asked for ID by the twenty something female bartender. "I can show you my bald spot or my license" I said cleverly. She smiled that tight smile of someone who has heard crap like that too many times. Already she hated me. I handed over my license. She did what everyone else who checked my ID has done lately which is do a double take between the picture on the license and the face sitting atop my portly middle-aged body. "Old picture" I said. I took the license back and thought about how many city miles have gone onto my visage since I last took a new driver's license picture. The baggy-eyed, receding hairline- framed creased melon I've got now still bears enough of a resemblance to that picture to get me through now but I imagine I should get a new picture taken soon. Well, at least I'm having a good time getting those bags and lines, right?
I plopped myself at the end of the U-shaped bar with an empty seat to my left and a storage cabinet to my right. To the left of the empty seat is another Newark-bound sufferer who keeps asking the bartender to switch the TV from ESPNNews to CNBC. Jesus, like airports aren't depressing enough this knucklehead wants to watch the world economy disintegrate while he munches some quesedillas.
I have a beer and head to get rid of the coffee that the beer wants to replace in my system and when I come back I find the empty seat occupied by a gentleman who manages to look both nerdy and dopey at the same time. I ascertain from his conversation with the bartender who hates me that he's from Texas and a regular at this particular airport watering hole. He has shoved my book and glasses a good 6 inches to the right and moved my chair hard against the storage cabinet and he doesn't seem particularly concerned about how he's invaded my personal space. He orders nachos with "everything but the meat" and engages wants-to-watch-CNBC- Jersey-Guy in conversation whereupon it is revealed that he is a government contractor with something to do with the oil industry. Well, that explains the overwhelming sense of entitlement that allowed him to shove my possessions and chair out of his way.
Wants-to-watch-CNBC-Jersey-Guy gets up to hit the head and Texan-government-contractor-asshole leans over to twentysomethng-bartender-that-hates-me and says of WTWCNBCJG "He's from Jersey?"
"I know, he doesn't seem abrasive enough right?" says TSBTHM.
A seat opens up toward the middle of the bar to the left of the current cast of characters and I move there and order nachos (chicken, if it matters) and another beer for lunch. I eat, pay my bill and decide to leave the Northeast-hating bartender and government sponge (WTWCNBCJG has already quit the scene) and check the departures board.
My flight has been pushed back another half hour.
The solution here is obvious. I decide to check out the other hot spot in Terminal A which is Sam Snead's Tavern. A golf-themed outpost in a Florida airport, imagine that.
I place myself at the bar and it feels less odd to be ID'd in this place since I'm well below the median age of the other patrons. I guess the Tequileria is where the young, hip and delayed hang while the old white guys all flock to the safe womb of a golf themed establishment. I order a double Maker's on the rocks to ensure I'll have sufficient nap fuel for the flight and sip it while the bartender exults over his lemon and lime cutting device. It's one of those things where you put the whole fruit in, push down and it slices it into even slices ready to use as drink garnishes. "Whoever invented this is a genius" he says to everyone with a smile. I nod sagely and sip my bourbon.
A waitress comes up to the bar and calls in an order from a table that includes two Arnold Palmers. I wondered if such a thing was a faux pas in a Sam Snead named establishment, but then I wasn't sure if the two were contemporaries or had a rivalry or anything and then I thought I didn't give a crap. How that even made it into my notebook is a mystery. Must've been the bourbon.
Speaking of the bourbon, I had finished it and was chewing on the ice cubes when I noticed I probably had enough time for a short beer before boarding. I order and the friendly bartender says "You can get a shot of anything with that for only three bucks." In a remarkable show of self-restraint I declined as I wanted to nap, not be unconscious for eight hours. I drink up, pay the bill and luckily, my flight is delayed no further on the ground. We do wind up circling for a bit but I made it home slightly earlier that I would've if I had worked a full day in NYC and had to commute home so it was still a win, just barely. You take your victories when and where you can in this life, no matter how small they are.
Comments
If it's too much trouble to get that photo updated, you could always grow a salt-n-pepper beard. It works everywhere except the self checkout at the orange big-box store when you attempt to buy spray paint.
There's a visual. Fifty-year-old man with matte finish forest green contrails from nostrils to lips. Excuse me sir, can I see some ID?
Glad you made it back in one piece.