The Excommunication Powers of Jetport Drive

Last week was my off-week in Gather foolishness, so I still intend to post weekly on or about Mondays. Funny enough, I would have posted last week but the events of the week were so madcap that I could find absolutely no way to link them. Thus, for those who would like a synopsis of what the article would have been about had I found a link, the keywords would be: Madama Butterfly; ancient Sparta; and successful chicken hypnosis methods.

The ancient Romans were absolutely mad about a practice called auspices, which literally meant “looking at birds” and, in practice, involved using birds or any other sign – real or imagined – to try and predict the future. An example comes to us from Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, who in his Of Occult Philosophy recounts that:

“…Livia the mother of Tiberius, when she was great with him, took a Hen-Egg and hatched it in her bosome, and at length came forth a Cock chick with a great comb, which the Augures interpreted that the child that should be born of her should be King.” (Source: http://www.esotericarchives.com/agrippa/agripp1c.htm)

All this was heavy on my mind today as I got off the rental car bus at the Enterprise Rent-a-Car location at Orlando Airport. The first thing I noticed in the bright blue Florida sky was a huge swarm of vultures (or some other like bird…there were more than fifteen but I am no good at bird identification) lazily hovering in a great, towering series of circles directly above the Enterprise building.

Needless to say, the Romans would have had a field day with this one.

It was my GPS that the birds were trying to warn me about. I am sure of it. The first system Enterprise gave me reset itself every time anything happened, and by anything I mean such events as me putting the car in gear, or pressing a pedal, or running my fingers through my hair in exasperation because the GPS was resetting itself again, or even unseen events occurring in distant lands – it simply was resetting itself constantly.

I took it back inside and two Enterprise employees came out to put it back in my car and test it. “I think you needed a woman’s touch,” one of them snidely remarked as she got it to work the first time. Luckily, she then celebrated this victory by getting out of the car, at which point the GPS loudly and merrily reset itself. Without a further word she went back inside and got a new one. While she was doing that, I asked the other employee, a boring-looking young man neatly dressed in shirt and tie, about the vultures circling overhead.

He squinted to look up at them and then shrugged and declared, “Yeah, we get them here a lot. They always do that when they’re about to feed.”

I don’t even need to reach into the metaphor bucket for this one. I gave him exactly the kind of look you give a car rental guy when he looks up at a pack  of vultures and says, “They always do that when they’re about to feed.”

If this had been a movie, the next cut would show my car with tires squealing as I got out of there as fast as I could. Instead, there was a banal series of events involving the new GPS, and soon I was out of there with a working system, which told me to take a right out of the parking lot and then, about a mile later, a right onto Jetport Drive.

Which, due to matters apparently beyond anybody’s control, is approximately fifteen feet long and ends unceremoniously in a huge series of concrete barriers with signs saying “ROAD CLOSED.” What is so funny about this is that one must only look past the barriers to see that the road is not closed.

Joke’s on them. There’s no road at all.

Jetport Drive is a long, green and healthy lawn, more overgrown by half again than any Roman aqueduct. Let me stress that we are not talking about a broken up road with grass growing between the cracks.

We are talking about a long, road-shaped lawn with no visible concrete at all.

It was at this point that I started to realize that the female voice in my GPS had an Australian accent. I only noticed because she kept insisting I proceed down Jetport Drive.

“Please continue down Jetport Drive.”

“I can’t, no road.”

“Please continue down Jetport Drive.”

“No road.”

“Please continue down Jetport Drive.”

“Shut up!”

“Please continue down Jetport Drive.”

“No.”

“Please continue down Jetport Drive.”

“Please continue to take a long walk off a short pier you skank.”

“Please continue down Jetport Drive.”

“You b----!”

“Please continue down Jetport Drive.”

“You snaky Australian b----!”

“Please continue down Jetport Drive.”

“How about you go ---- yourself down Jetport Drive, how about that? How does that sound you Australian car gorgon?”

“Please continue down Jetport Drive.”

“We’ll get you a big banner that says “Look at me, I am the Sucky Lie Harpy of Jetport Drive.”

“Recalculating route.”

This took me by incredible surprise, and there was silence in the car for a half minute.

“Please do a U-turn on Jetport Drive.”

I did not have to turn my head to know that there was no Jetport Drive behind me. I had made a right onto the abandoned, missing non-road, but if I had made a left I would have simply driven directly into woods.

“Please do a U-turnon Jetport Drive.”

What I said at this point can not be entered into words here, for not only does my mother read these posts, but it is vaguely possible someone at the Vatican does too, and neither one of them would want anything to do with me ever again.

I finally found my hotel but was unable to check in right away because a convention was just wrapping up, and though people were checking out in droves the housekeeping staff had not been able to get started on rooms just yet. I spent about an hour in the hotel lobby on the WiFi before getting a room, but once inside all my hopes of a nap went right out the window.

There is a revolution sweeping the hotel industry where long-overdue attention is being paid to the bed you sleep in. And on that bed, there are pillows.

Certain hotel chains have started issuing different pillow strengths in an effort to make sure that you have at least one pillow that is supremely comfortable. What they don’t count on is idiots like me who, while trying to nap, run through their mind that if all the pillows are different, and one is the most comfortable, then one must also be the least comfortable. And who wants that?

So it was not too long at all before I decided I might as well take in the Florida sun. I got in my car, put my sunglasses on, rolled down the window and cruised out of the hotel parking lot to see what could be seen. It wasn't too long before I saw signs for Daytona Beach.

We have all seen the Daytona Beach of spring break, but those kids went home yesterday and today the beach was gorgeous - impossibly long and straight, with clean sand and serene ocean waves. A light breeze and the odd seagull rounded it out, but for most of the time I spent walking the beach, I had it to myself. Sure, I saw the cliche couple or lone jogger, but we had so much room we could give one another a wide berth, and I really felt like I had my own beach. The sun was bright and the breeze was the perfect temperature. When I got back to my car I checked my cell phone to see the time, and I realized I had spent three solid hours walking on the beach, just lost in my thoughts. I hadn't even said a word to anybody.

I felt great. I felt relaxed. I felt like I just taken a long and lovely vacation.

I set the GPS to get me back to the hotel, and as I cruised along the Florida highway, I thought that perhaps my past grudges against this state were overblown. When you get out of the partying aspect, and get a chance to see the beach like I did, it really is a beautiful, relaxing-

"In 0.5 miles, turn left on Jetport Drive."

And thus, after nearly four hours of silence, I started saying words again. Exactly what those words were is between the good Lord and me.