Days 2 & 3 -- Stick a Fork in Me

Day 2 -- I feel like shit.

Day 3 -- Woke up in lovely Lake City, Florida to misting rain and grey skies. I should have taken heed and gone back to bed. Little did I know how totally one guy could screw up in one day. On my Road Trip in Sept/Oct '07, I lost my car keys in the Mall of America -- and got them back; left 12 DVD's and a library book in a motel in Wisconsin; left my computer power cord in Utah (replacement cost $127); and left my car keys at the golf course in Colorado -- and got them back again. I made fun of myslef in my blog and shrugged it off.

Well, I guess I have moved up to the absent mindedness Hall of Fame. Let me give you the setting in which I am writng this and you'll start to get the picture. I am sitting in my room on the 30th floor of the Westin in Hollywood, Florida and the cruise ship Fascination is making it way to Nassau. What I pulled today certainly qualifies as a cluster fuck.

I had about 375 miles to drive to the Port of Miami. I was driving fast as always, but stopping frequently and in no big hurry. Plenty of time. As I cruise down the Florida Turnpike at 85 watching cars blow by me like I was traveling the speed limit or something, a thought popped into my mind. Did I bring my passort? Is it possible that I have been driving for two and a half days feeling like shit and I don't have my passport with me? Afraid so, dumbass! I FORGOT MY FUCKIN PASSPORT!

I'm feeling nauseous, but then I give my self one of those "you're a corporate lawyer and former executive, you can find a way around this" pep talks. I call the lovely Molly (not her real name) at singlescruise.com and we discuss it -- she thinks I said I'm thirty miles from the docks, not 130 miles, so I've got time. She says go down there and plead your case. OK, might as well. I come up with an idea -- a lame one -- what if my son Rob gets my passport and photocopies it and makes a sworn statement that it's a true copy, blah, blah, blah, and faxes it to Immigration. I call Molly back. I tell her my idea -- she says maybe it will work -- we both know it won't -- and she asks me where I am. 117 miles from the Port. "Jim, you should be there. The ship departs at 4:00!" "No, way. It departs at 6:00!" I WAS TWO HOURS LATE!

There were more phone calls to the Travel Hotline ans so forth but that was it. Three college degrees and I can't remember shit. And the hell of it is, I had a 4:00 departure on my Outlook calendar and I changed it to 6:00!

So here I sit trying to make lemonade out of this. . . Well when I got back last October, I said I would probably go on another road trip in Feb to somewhere warm. I guess I'm doing that.

Unbelievable!

Tommorow I rest and relax and figure out Plan B.