centre of the universe - the dreaming: Still traveling

03/07/2003: "Still traveling" Another radio show today; it was okay...not spectacular, but okay. Then off to pick up the Captain, and out to Saskatoon for our AGM (work's; not the CotU's (also, that's not 'coteau', that's CotU - Centre of the Universe...). CotU's AGM comes about once every several millennia.

I believe I was talking (or rather, writing) about the horrific airplane journey during our Christmas Vacation farce. Did I remember to mention mum was terrified of airplanes? Good. Wouldn't want to leave that bit out. So. We land in Toronto, I'm absolutely bushed, and we try to figure out how the hell to get to the hotel. As you may know, Pearson International Airport is closer to Baffin Island than it is to any recognisable hotel...um...well, except for those hotels right out there. Anyway, we were staying 'off base', as it were.

My father isn't a delicate man. He's not even particularly graceful. Unless he's swimming. Or curling. Or playing soccer. Or hockey. Okay, he's good at *sports*, but when it comes to social interaction...he's a little odd. F'rinstance? F'rinstance, he rarely says things once when he's asking a question. I figure this comes from having been a teacher, and having got used to none of the students listening, and having to repeat himself.

We find a Kiosk. Not just any kiosk. A car rental kiosk. I try to explain that the car rental people probably know less about where our hotel is and how to get to it than we do. My father either didn't hear, didn't listen, or didn't care. He asks the kiosk employee, "how do we get to our hotel?"

"I have no idea, sir," she replies, smiling sweetly.

Dad is at an impasse. "I say, how do we get to our hotel?" he asks again.

"I'm sorry, sir, I don't know."

"what do you mean you don't know?"

The smile is starting to fade. She points to the three-foot-high fluorescent orange letters above her head. "I work for Hertz, sir. I'm not working for the shuttle service. Did you have a car booked with Hertz?"

Dad stares at her blankly. Keep in mind, this is the man who's been awake since 5am (probably closer to 4), driven across frigid snow caked prairie, through a deer, while his daughter is barfing, all in his mother's car. HE has come thousands of kilometres on a stuffy airplane, eating other people's hardtack and swill, wondering all the time if his daughter is a closet alcoholic. He has arrived at today's destination tired, grumpy, and fed up.

The woman across from Dad stares back, just as blankly, but now with a semi-sweet smile.

"Listen," Dad says.

"uh-oh," I think to myself, having heard variations on this theme several times in my short life.

"We just got off the plane. All I want to do is find our hotel and have a sleep. Could you please tell me how to get to our hotel?"

The smile is gone now. "Perhaps you should inquire at the information kiosk," she replies, and I imagine her clenching her teeth. After all, we may have been on an airplane all day, we may be tired, cranky, and sick, but she's working part time at an airport car rental kiosk, probably for minimum wage, and has probably had to answer this same question (although probably not with such a determined man) about fifty thousand times.

"I thought this was the information kiosk," Dad says, backing up, bending over backwards, and reading the three-foot letters. "Oh. Where is the information kiosk?" The woman points a finger at a teeny distant speck on the horizon (yes, the horizon...it's a big airport) and forces a smile. "Oh. Thanks." Dad proceeds to swear about having to carry his luggage, mum's luggage, my luggage, and very nearly having to carry mum (remember that part about her being afraid of airplane travel?) several miles through the crowded airport.

Eventually we figure out that the hotel sends shuttle buses to the airport every fifteen minutes. We huddle up in the inner lobby of the big double doors at the entrance, waiting for the shuttle. We are not the only ones waiting. The shuttle is nearly full when we get on. My father debated leaving one of us and coming back on the next shuttle. He *said* he was thinking of leaving my mother, but really I think he was planning on catching the next flight out.

I had never been anywhere near Toronto before. I heard about the cultural mixing-pot, and I was wide-eyed with glee in the airport proper. The shuttle is a different story. It is piloted by a tall, skinny, dark-skinned man in khaki green trousers, a white tee shirt, and a black bomber jacket. He is wearing a colourful knit cap. "Ah," I think, "he must be Jamaican."

Strangely enough, I was right. Usually when I make assumptions like that, I'm waaaay off base. But we get on the shuttle and he says, "hallo, mon. And de laydees. Der be some room a'da baack udda bus. Putcha bag on de floo' and try fin' a place ta sit." I walk to the back of the bus, put my bag on the floor, and try to find a place to sit. Mum wanders to the back of the bus, and has a seat. Dad is carrying her luggage. Dad is ambling slowly down the aisle, gawking at everything.

Don't get me wrong, here. My father is a well-travelled man. He spent nearly a year in Europe, he's been all over England and Scotland, and the Mainland US. He's been all over Canada. He knows traveling. He knows lots of different people. He's not 'just a hick'. But he was acting hickey. Um. Hickish.

Dad finally makes it to where we're sitting, and I figure out what the problem is. Dad is mimicking the man driving our bus. The man sworn to deliver us to a warm bath, a quiet bed, and a long sleep. The *entire way* to the hotel, Dad giggles like a schoolgirl every time our driver opens his mouth. Then, much to my chagrin, he mimicks the fellow. People actually got up and moved away from us. They found other seats. They preferred to stand.

The fifteen minute trip wasn't over soon enough. I have to admit, there was a teeny tiny part of me which wasn't afraid of the Jamaican mob, which saw the humour in the situation. As we're leaving the shuttle, Dad hands the guy a five-dollar bill and says, "thanks! That was the best entertainment I've seen in a while!", and whistles as he leads mum to the hotel lobby.

I shrug, try to look apologetic, and stagger off the bus with the look of that poor man's face etched into my memory. He had the shocked, bewildered look about him you see on the vicitims of tsunami and flash floods. Like his home had just been carried of by a big goofy dog.

We get settled in the hotel, somewhere on the eighth floor. This is important. Did I mention my mother was deathly afraid of staying in a hotel room higher than the second floor? She watched "Towering Inferno" in 1979 and never was really the same. The first thing I do in the hotel is to run a warm bath. Then I fall asleep in the tub. I would have been fine if Dad hadn't woken me by pounding on the door and hollering "WE'RE GOING TO THE PUB" loud enough to wake thirty sailors on shore leave.

I start, slip underwater, and gasp in surprise. In that order. It took me a while to recover, but I managed to make it in to bed and was glad to be so. We were leaving for the airport at 5:30am the next morning.

I didn't hear my parents come back; the next thing I remember is my father shaking me by the shoulders to wake me up. I *did* mention I'd spent the day before blowing chunks all over Saskatchewan and somewhere over Manitoba, didn't I? We all get dressed and packed up. As I reach for the door handle, the unimaginible happens.

The fire alarm goes off. My mother turns white, then red, then white again, then purple, and she growls, "Jesus Christ, I KNEW we shouldn't have stayed on the 8th floor..."

Remembering my fire safety training, I feel the door. It's not hot. "What's the holdup?" my dad shouts from somewhere in the room.

"Hotel's on fire," I call back, touching the door handle gingerly.

"The hotel is not on FIRE," he shouts, brushing past me and pulling the door open. He could have killed us all. "What the hell is that noise?"

"It's the FIRE ALARM, Dad," I holler in exasperation, "which goes off when there's a FIRE."

Mum has begun to hyperventilate. Amazingly, she does this while uttering a solid stream of curses that would make a seasoned biker weep.

"There's no goddamn fire," he reiterates, grabbing the luggage, "let's just go."

My mother is screaming at him. I finally begin to see the real humour in the situation, and, after having scanned the hallway for smoke, I set out behind them. People are streaming out of their rooms. Droves and droves of them, scampering for the stairways in flannel nighties and running shoes, satin negligees and snowboots. Some of them have towels to cover their boxer shorts, others appear to be wearing towels because they've just been in the shower. Dad heads to the elevator.

"Can't use the elevator, Dad. It's shut down."
"What the hell *FOR*!?"
"The fire."
"There's no goddamn fire."
"right. I'm taking the stairs."

Dad tries unsuccessfully to call the elevator by mashing the button repeatedly. Eventually, I hear him on the stairwell, asking everyone he passes, "What's going on?" Everyone he passes answers, "I think there's a fire." And then Dad says, "There's no goddamn fire." Next person we pass, same question. Same answer. Same retort. There were a lot of people in that stairwell.

Did I mention my mother was a chain smoker? She was having difficulty keeping up to me on the stairs. Granted, she was swearing fairly steadily, and in a state of utter terror. I waited for her on the landing, watching people pass by us, and one woman who stopped and said, "my, you folks are just prepared for *everything*, aren't you?"

We get to the bottom of the stairs and try to head in to the lobby, but a concierge (glorified waiter/butler/shoe-shine boy) informs us we have to leave via the kitchen. "Why?" My father asks.

"It's standard fire procedure, sir," he replies, attempting to direct my father through the kitchen.
"There's no goddamn fire!" Dad tells him, and proceeds to follow instructions. In the lobby, which is filled with firemen, my father corners one (I think it was their leader) and asks, "What the hell's going on around here?"

You know what that fireman says?

"Don't worry, sir. We're just conducting a drill. We do this every few months to make sure hotel staff know how to get people out."

My mother exhales. I begin to laugh. My father nods sagely and pulls a croissant from his pocket. "Where'd you get that?" I ask.

"From the kitchen," he says, handing me an orange. "You want something?" he offers my mother a scone. She swears and stomps outside to have a cigarette.

Finally, the shuttle bus pulls up outside the hotel, the doors open like Moses parting the Red Sea, and who should be sitting there but the driver from the night before. Mum doesn't notice; she pushes past him and his entourage (he has an entourage this morning; four other men who look an awful lot like him). Dad chortles an enthusisastic, "Hey-Hey! Good to see you so early in the morning; don't they let you go to bed around here?" and gives him the ol' chuck on the shoulder.

I must have looked like I'd just seen Bob Barker shooting baby seals with a taser. I slip past the man, mumbling apologies for my father, and try not to look at him. He tells my father the four other men are his brothers and cousins. They are riding with him to the airport. Is that okay?

Dad grins and hands him an orange. "The more the merrier!"

Oh, there's still more. We haven't even *got* to Florida yet. There's the bit about the car, the beach, and Denny's. Not to mention the trip home. Are you getting any of this? We'd better do something with it. For posterity's sake.

"GAK" "A Thought"

1 Comment

Ooblik , on Sunday, 9th March:

ok, thats a funny story. I'm at lloyd's place in edmonchuk and we're both laughing about your father stealing food on his quick tour of the hotel kitchen. Lloyd says "hi".

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