Jimmy Buffett & Me
Lee is a “Parrot Head”. She has had me accompany her to at least 3 concerts and had me set to go to a fourth. That one didn’t work out.
The first was at Fair Park and while getting ready for it she forced me to put on a shirt with a collar. The first two guys I saw when I got there were wearing coconut bras….I was overdressed. At another I had to roll over a half mile after paying $40 for parking.
So when she asked me to go to one in Las Vegas I thought “this is great…something for her, something for me.” To make it even better our daughter, living in Albuquerque came with our grandson Luke to share our oversized room.
We arrived on Thursday with the concert on Saturday and us heading back home on Sunday at 12:30 (remember this). We stayed at the then new New York New York and spent most of Thursday evening and night exploring and eating in this hotel. My grandson, then 5 or 6 years old sat in my lap anytime we were on the move and we visited every part of this “money trap”. The next morning I did what I always do when Lee and I go to Vegas. I quickly dressed and had my morning coffee at a BlackJack table…my favorite part of any trip.
I met back up with the group and we went for breakfast and that is when it happened. As I was ordering I felt something tighten in my abdomen. A half minute of “odd” feeling and then the full-bore, double over, childbirth like pain of a kidney stone. Now this wasn’t my first stone so I (we) knew immediately what it was and headed to the taxi stand just outside our hotel. Getting into the cab was probably funny with Lee doing the talking and me doing the yelling. When the very confused cabbie understood the mission he took us to Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center emergency room. Not sure if Lee tipped or even paid for the ride but we were there and there we stayed for the entire day.
They spent about 10 minutes diagnosing the stone and then administered some really good drugs and started a IV to push the stone down it’s only available path and then we just wait. We wait….and wait for something that doesn’t come. On into the evening, we wait. Finally they release us to go wait in our hotel room. Giving me a little amber bottle of very strong drugs that will allow me to ….wait.
By morning (Saturday) I had the fever that always accompanies these thing for me and added Tylenol to my diet. I convinced the others to go explore and enjoy themselves as they were no help to me and sometime late afternoon I passed the stone. That left me with only the 102 degree fever marking the infection the stone had given me.
That evening I had a dream. Lee came to me in a elegant outfit wearing perfume and heels. My daughter Kim was there too. They said if we got hungry we should order room service and I asked where are you going? They replied “We are going to see Jimmy Buffett”. Turns out this was not a dream. These two left me alone with a six year old caretaker who’s talent was being able to work the television without help. We somehow survived and the two of them returned still basking in the glow of a Vegas concert. Luke must have ordered room service since there were plates with silver covers lying about. We had survived another day. Now just one more before I can go home.
With me woozy and fever ridden we checked out of the hotel early and got to the airport 2 hours before our flight…waited in line for 15 minutes to be told we had missed our flight.
- Me: Our flight is not until 12:30
- Gate Agent: 12:30AM
- Me: Who in the crap has a flight at that time of morning?”
Then answered myself Las Vegas. The thing I hate most is when something in my life goes really wrong and I realize it was totally my own fault. I had made the reservations myself and printed a copy of the itinerary and checked it several times. It would have been a big imposition under any circumstances but wanting to throw up every time I caught a sniff of the Cinnabon at the terminal took it to a new level.
Not to belabor this part…we spent as much time in the airport flying standby as we had two days before in the emergency room and about 8:00pm Lee took charge and bought us two full fair tickets home. Even in my pain…I am cheap. We got to Terminal D around midnight and remembered our car was at Terminal C and the SkyLink stopped running at midnight. But a kindly bus driver with a wheelchair lift took pity on us and took us directly to our car…bags and all.
We have not been to another concert in Vegas. No Jimmy Buffett anywhere. That whole trip seems like it happened to someone else. Now every time I hear Margaretville I have this sense of impending doom and any song with steel drums causes me to tense up.
“God Don’t Own A Car”
I have been out wanderin’
I have traveled far
One conclusion I have made
Is God don’t own a car
He don’t wear no fancy clothes
He’d rather take the bus
He would pay air tourist fare
So He could sit with us
He don’t have no tambourine
Guitar or slide trombone
The music we make here on Earth
But the words are His own
And when we finally reach His home
And walk among the stars
He’ll join our band then we’ll understand
Why God don’t own a car
Jimmy Buffett