Day 24
The End of the Line
Please bear with me. Of all the days of my vacation, this is the one for which I have no notes. I'm making this all up, excuse me, transcribing it from memory right now as I type this, which is about one month after we got back into town. My brain's a little fuzzy on details, but it's been fuzzy on everything else all along, so who's to notice?
Since the check-out time was so late in the day, and since the plane was due to leave equally late in the day, there wasn't any rush to get up early. Therefore, we actually got some sleep at night, when we were supposed to, and everything.
We got up late. We packed slowly. I checked the hotel services directory and found the Greek place that did advertise Moussaka.
We took our time checking out, because there was really nothing better to do with the day. We meandered on over to that Greek place, where finally, after three tries in as many weeks, I got my slice of Moussaka. And darned good, too, even if it's just "tourist" Greek food (sort of like "Chow Mein" is Chinese).
For being a place that was miles away from Danforth street and that only served the stereotypical Greek dishes, it was quite a pleasant place. The food was good, plentiful and cheap. Very comforting for someone who was about to face their own death, or at least go back home from an otherwise successful vacation.
I drove us down to the airport, and got us properly lost trying to find the rental return place. They have two terminals at Toronto's airport, and I picked the wrong one. We didn't discover this until we'd already returned the car, though, so we got to lug our bags all over creation, and then find the shuttle bus to the other terminal.
We'd got to the airport two or three hours early, but then again, I don't like to be late for anything. We decided to check our bags, and clear whatever passport stamping line they had and check out the duty free shops for some single malt scotches. This assumes that the US was considered a different country.
Remember the first day? Well, there's that question again, and the answer is: Who's asking?
We got into the terminal, and where we found three ticketing/baggage check areas: Domestic flights, International flights, United States. Don't tell anyone, but it took me two tries to get into the right line. Ok, maybe Charlie's persuasive arguments had finally done the trick on me, but I was under the impression that the US was considered a different country. Maybe it was the real sugar in the Canadian Coca Cola or something.
Well, here's the deal: We went to a normal ticketing counter, and they tagged our bags, looked at our passports, and gave everything, including the bags back to us.
Then, we filled out cards saying that we had $500 in Len Deighton books to declare, and handed the cards and our bags to some surly border cop types. They took our bags, put them on a conveyor belt, and waved us through.
We walked to the end of the conveyor belt, and picked up our bags. Next, we got into another line where we got metal detected (and they had the machine cranked up so sensitive that it picked up my fillings), and everything else was x-rayed.
Again, we picked up our bags at the end of the conveyor belt. It would seem that we were in an airport obsessed with conveyor belts.
This left another set of windows to go through, with very long lines. There was some humorless asshole at the window, asking us all sorts of trick questions. He'd causally ask us how long we'd been in Canada, and once he thought he'd lulled us into a nice conversational state (as if a nice conversation with the guy could go past depositing airborne saliva on his face), he'd drop little trick questions like "How many ounces of cocaine are you smuggling today?".
I mean, c'mon. I didn't expect this sort of treatment until I got back to customs in the US. What I didn't realize at the time was that this WAS US customs, right there in a Canadian airport.
And they say Canada is a foreign country. Trying real hard to act like the US's lap dog, if you ask me. If I was Mulroney, I'd quit trying to auction off the railroad and get those jerks out of my airport instead.
Finally, we walked up to an unattended conveyor belt that had a sign informing us that by placing our baggage on the belt, they would somehow fail to get lost. We did so, and much to our amazement, they did meet us back at Logan.
Well, that left us a few hours to kill. Like I said before, we planned on doing the duty free shops. Trouble was that we'd already gone past all of them, and now that we were standing on virtual US soil, all we could do is sit and wait for the plane, or purchase $3 Snickers bars at the gift shop.
Not to worry. I still had another Deighton book and a $15 issue of Time Magazine that I'd just purchased at the gift shop. It's just that the chairs in the waiting area were a prelude to the agony we were to suffer on board the DC-9 in a couple more hours. I whiled away the hours calling various people back at work, in an attempt to secure a ride home from the van stop. No luck.
The aircraft did board and depart on time, though, marking the second time in my life that the airline got the schedule right both ways. Again, it was little consolation for the seats on the plane.
This time, I had the extra special bonus treat seat, next to the emergency exit. I don't think I've ever sat right next to an emergency exit before, and right off the bat, I didn't like all the morbid things that ran through my mind like "Gee, I wonder what really would happen if I pulled on that thing that says 'PULL'?". It took me a while to settle down, but sooner or later, I was sitting on my hands and thinking reasonably normal thoughts.
Like killing the president of US Scare, and anyone who had a hand in the design of the DC-9.
Then, I noticed something. Whenever the plane would bounce, hit a bit of turbulence, or otherwise shake for one reason or another, the emergency exit would flex outward by about an inch. There was something about leaning against the door that kept threatening to pop off the plane that just unnerved me. I spent the rest of the flight leaning away from the door, and considering my morbid fate if the door really did come off.
At least it was a distraction from the uncomfortable seats, which were just as bad as ever.
Fortunately, there were no disasters, and we arrived in Boston roughly on schedule. Unlike our flight out of Boston, this pilot actually left the impression that he could land the plane.
After retrieval of our baggage, the only two tasks remaining in our vacation were to catch the Hudson Bus line back to Merrimack, then find a ride home from the Merrimack Hilton. For all the supercontinental distances covered in our vacation, it was the three or four miles from the Hilton to our house which presented us with the greatest uncertainty. Sort of like spending your entire life trying to get back home to Earth, from say, Andromeda, only to be dropped off in the Gobi Desert. Well, sort of like that, only a whole lot less dramatic. I also assume that the Hilton had a bar that served better sissy drinks than anywhere in the Gobi Desert, too, but you never know.
Drinks aside, I still didn't know how we were going to get home, but first things first. The first thing was to show up at the Hudson Bus stop just as the bus to Merrimack was pulling away. This meant another hour wait, and having to explain to all those other bus line drivers why we were so stupid to buy return tickets on Hudson.
In the mean time, I went about calling Randy and Charlie to see if we could bum a ride home from one of them. We weren't going to be in Merrimack for a couple hours yet, which unfortunately, is about the same amount of time it was going to take for Charlie to make a decision on the subject. Therefore, I tried Randy.
Pay dirt! Randy had been trying to reach us. He had also just got back in town, and realized that he left some of his laundry at our house while he was watching our house for us, and he wanted it back real bad. I allowed as how some enterprising individual could capitalize on this by ensuring that he was there as soon as we got home. Maybe by hijacking us at the Hilton.
I tried to second guess when the bus would get us to the Hilton. We had a time when they were supposed to pick us up, and to their credit, they did so very close to that time. It's just that I didn't have any idea how long the ride would take. I guessed, and ended up giving Randy a figure that had him waiting for us at the Hilton for about a half an hour, but somehow, he wasn't too upset, anyway.
I didn't know this was wasted effort. Turns out that on the ride back up to NH, the bus driver expended more effort having his dispatcher call out for rides (for the other passengers) than he did on his driving. All we'd have had to do was ask him to ask whoever to call Randy for us and tell him when we'd really be there. Then, Randy could have been properly confused at receiving anonymous phone calls from complete strangers telling him to report promptly to some hotel.
Anyway, the bus was full to capacity. I tried to listen to the news on PBS on my mini-TV while Robert talked to the other passengers. I found out that essentially nothing had happened in our absence, with all of US politics being directed towards flag burning. Nice to know they're spending my money so well.
Well, that was the trip to the Merrimack Hilton. There we were met by Randy's smiling face and his car "Wheezer." We politely refrained from making fun of Wheezer until we were safely stalled in our own driveway.
Randy ran inside and fetched his stuff. We checked the house to make sure everything was there, then hopped back into our car, and drove down to the Pizza Hut for a Thin & Crispy Pepperoni Lover's Pizza.
Shoot. And I was hoping they'd have one of those BBQ Lover's Pan Pizzas. Oh well, I guess we're back in Kansas now.
All done, but perhaps I could interest you in a story about Sailing?
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