“Don’t panic if you see military people walking around the airport with machine guns.”

That’s the first thing my girlfriend said to me after I told her we were gonna take her up on their Puerta Vallarta invite for the holidays.

Machine guns?

Wait!

Maybe we needed to think this one over.

Why were we doing this anyways?

Me with a big-time plane phobia and Lobo perfectly happy with his feet on American soil at all times.

Well, they’d been our friends since high school and spending time together was always guaranteed fun and we had no holiday plans so…………………………………

First realization was neither of us knew where our birth certificates were.
We found three divorce decrees in a folder with a happy-face sticker labeled FREEDOM and our marriage license filed under MISCELLANEOUS but no birth certificates.

Ah but Senor Lobo said, NO PROBLEMO (we were practicing speaking Spanish).

He did some computer research, sent money and a few weeks later, proof of our birth arrived in the mail.

Next was our luggage dilemma.
Our goal was to pack light and carry-on.
This required serious thought, preparation and a dry run.

We checked and rechecked making sure no bells, whistles or lights would react to either of us when we walked under the “arch of suspicion” or as we watched our belongings float along in a plastic tub on the conveyer belt.

The morning finally arrived and with as much excitement about BEING there as apprehension about GETTING there, it was time.

We stood in one airport line after another until we finally reached check-point Charlie.

We each took a deep breath, removed our shoes, heisted our belongings into the tubs on the moving belts and walked through the threshhold.
The TSA tough guys were waiting for us on the other side armed with the “worry wand”; the wand that could send us back through to remove belts, buckles, jewelry, clothing, underwire bras, teeth fillings, glass eyes, nuts, bolts, rags, bags you name it.

When all this checking crap began after 9/11, on one trip my eyelash curler was taken from me.
MY EYELASH CURLER!!!
I tried to think WHY?
How the HELL could my eyelash curler be considered a weapon?
Well, I knew arguing wasn’t gonna work but what I THOUGHT was the gal checking me needed a new eyelash curler!
I hope she got “cooties” from it!

I saw my Elvis checkbook and roll of Mentos coming through the black rubber flaps waving my tub through.

We emptied our tubs and hurried from that immediate area, shoes in hand.
I wanted away from it..…the belt, the inspectors….all of it.
We found a bench, put on our shoes and sat.

The airport information suggested we arrive two hours early so there we were for nearly two hours.
We sat and watched others set off the bells, whistles and lights sending them back through to deal with…..the pat-down and the wizards with their wands.

As I watched, I wondered what kind of system missed checking the creepy-crawler looking guy with the guitar case and maybe no guitar but a gun, while they patted down and wanded a teeny, tiny little old lady.
They made her remove her shoes and they even pulled out the inserts.
What the hell could be inside a little old lady’s shoe inserts?
An eyelash curler?

After that dumb display of stupidness, I watched the little lady struggle to get the inserts back into her shoes just right and her shoes on her feet.
She then opened her purse and took out a teeny pill and placed it under her tongue.
I knew that to be Nitroglycerin for chest pain.
Pangs of guilt ran through me for not helping her.

Meanwhile, the dirt-bag with the “guitar/gun case” slid right through.

I kept my eyes on him.
He was a candidate that deserved being watched as far as I was concerned.

Lobo performed his “3-second psychological evaluation” on each person making it through the bully-barrier and assured me we were OK.

I wasn’t so convinced, especially about the sleezy lookin’ guy leaned up against the wall all alone.
I decided to watch him too.
And maybe the woman way over on the other side was his accomplice and the kid?
Maybe he wasn’t even a kid, maybe he was an enemy….. a midget disguised as a kid.
I reported my suspicions to Lobo.
He evaluated and guaranteed our safety.
I was relieved!

Next up, a dirty, messy, long-haired derelect-looking creature.
We waited and watched.

The alarm went off but it wasn’t for dirty, messy guy…..it was for a slow-walking, bent-over little man at least 115 years old.
Security approached.
Possibly his walker?
Maybe his oxygen tank?
How ‘bout a hip replacement?
Or his heart monitor?
He got the full treatment and after they patted, wanded and patted again, he got the big OK.

I saw a pattern….. check the oldies, let the suspicious ones through.
Maybe it was the checkers!
Maybe THEY were the enemy!

A young woman with a body full of tattoos had sat down beside me.
She was deeply engrossed in her book.
My concern wasn’t the tats but the book she was reading…
“FLIGHT ATTENDANTS FOR DUMMIES”.
Now that scared me!

I requested another 3 second eval, one more time.

My inspector scanned the entire area and examined each face.
His final evaluation … we’re safe.
I remained skeptical and knew the potential suspects I was gonna keep an eye on.

Finally it was time to enter the enclosed capsule where we all breathed and re-breathed every inch of air, cough, sneeze and spit that anyone expelled from their lungs and any other orifice for the next 3 ½ hours.

Aside from being dirty, old, and room for less than two where they put three, our seats were fine.
I was the sacrificial passenger stuck in the middle.
I felt like a piece of bolony shoved in between two pieces of whole wheat!

I buckled up, located each possible plane-problem-passenger and counted the rows to the EXIT doors each way.

The screaming child made us look at each other and agree there were much worse things going on in life than being too old to have kids and that was being young enough to still have to deal with them!
We were thankful that the little unhappy passenger was seated far away from us.

I watched and listened as the flight attendant went through her thing.
She pulled the oxygen mask from above and snapped the wrapped-around-no-one seat belts on and off.
I looked around at people who weren’t listening or paying attention.
Those were the people I would not be sharing my floating device with if we crashed.

The engines revved loud, the plane vibrated, we began to move and my heart pounded in my chest.

3 1/2 scary-for-me-hours later, and a few Bloody Mary’s, we landed.

I breathed my first full breath.

We unloaded, we spotted our friends and the fun began.

What a wonderful way to spend time; lie on the warm, sandy beach, drinks and food delivered to our lounge chairs, peddlers selling their wares and mere steps to the massage shack.

We took bus tours, boat tours and walked the town at night.

And laughter, all the laughter we could handle til we had to stop and breathe.

Five wonderful days to remember.

On our last night, we decided to eat local in town.
We were careful NOT to drink the water as we’d been warned.

All too soon our Mexican vacation was over but the memories would last forever.

Two hours into the return flight it began; a rumbling, cramping, nauseating feeling throughout my body.

I spent most of the rest of the flight going in and out of the bathroom and by the time we landed I knew everyone on the plane knew what was going on with me…..Montezuma was revenging.

When we reached our car, the driver (that would be Lobo) couldn’t find his keys. He couldn’t find ANY of his keys.
We searched pockets, my purse and our luggage.
No keys.

Ah but saved by the secret key he kept hidden in the car somewhere just for this kind of happening and lucky that somehow he remembered where it was.
He does that…..puts stuff somewhere safe and then forgets.
Well…..I do it too.

It was Christmas night, we were in San Jose.
We had 2 hours of car riding to get home.
One of us was hungry (that would NOT be me!).
Most every place was closed.
The hungry one wanted a piece of pie; apple with chocolate ice cream.

And then, there it was…..the DENNY’S sign, all lit up.
Surely they had apple pie and chocolate ice cream.

I ordered water but watching him eat that pie sent me running to the Denny’s restroom and NOT to rest.

An hour away from home there was more nausea, rumbling and cramping but this time it wasn’t me Montezuma was attacking, it was the apple pie eater.

What the heck had we eaten in Mexico to do that to us?
We thought we’d been careful to stay away from the water.
And then it hit us…..the ice cubes in the Margaritas, that’s all it took.
Those sneaky, nasty, little ice cubes did us in.

For the next two days we stayed in bed and both bathrooms in the house were in constant use.
We looked like pale zombies and made deals for who got to use the upstairs bathroom which was closer and who had to run down the stairs to the other one.
The loudest moaner won.

Now here’s where we ran into the BIG problem.

We could have just stayed in bed til we got better but……….

We had tickets for a Lionel Richie concert on December 30th in Reno and not Montezuma or even Jesus were keeping me from that concert.

Our plan had been to drive to the foothills and spend the day and evening with Kris our youngest daughter and her family; a 3-4 hour drive from our home in Pacific Grove.

She was going to have a holiday dinner while we were there.
We alerted her ahead of time that we’d be bringing some chicken broth and that’s all we’d be eating.

I loaded up on every over-the-counter drug I could find to try to appease Mr Montezuma and buy us some off-toilet time.
Those were hard conditions to travel with but I figured we’d be better soon.

When we arrived at youngest daughter’s she told us their power had been off since early morning so she took the turkey to her neighbors to cook in their gas oven.
We warmed our broth on top the pellet-burning stove; they had turkey, we had broth and after the kids went to bed, we helped build their Christmas toys by candlelight.

Montezuma was still revenging.

The next day we drove to Melissa’s our younger twin, to holiday visit and spend the night, another couple hour drive…..but they had power!
Again broth for dinner.

Early the next morning we rented a vehicle that could handle the weather.
The forecast for Reno was snow.

French fries are one of my top 5 most favorite food and I smelled them as soon as I shut the door of the rented SUV.
I thought maybe I was hallucinating from hunger.
But, it only took a moment to locate a bag of McDonalds fries wadded up and shoved in the pocket of the passenger door.
Once I probably would have considered eating them (teasin’) but the smell and sight of them sent me running…..one more time.

And the two pale zombies headed for Reno.

It’s hard when your stomach is empty, you haven’t really eaten much in days, you can’t keep anything down BUT…..you’re hungry.

It was Day 5 for Lobo and 6 for me, surely we were almost done?

Within two hours we were in Reno.

We were hungry and so…..we ate.

And then, well we were off and running again…..to the nearest restrooms.

The miseries stopped long enough to win $100 on the ELVIS machine we passed as we were going to our room to rest until concert time.

The concert was being held in a big outside tent and our seats couldn’t have been worse; way up high, on the side and smack behind a pole.

I wanted to cry.

But then my hero came to my rescue.
He told me to keep my eyes on him and he went looking for a decision maker.
Next thing I knew, he was waving me to come down and there we sat…..center front.
Best concert seats ever!

I opened my purse and swallowed down every anti-nausea, anti-anything-else-I-had- goin’-on-with-me pill that I’d brought.
I was NOT leaving my seat til he stopped singing.

And then, there he was; the man who wrote and sang love songs that drove me crazy.

I was entranced, mesmerized, gone!

Half-way through Lobo did something I didn’t understand.
He took me by my hand and told me to follow him and…..
he walked me smack up to the stage.
Lionel was singing, he stopped for a nano-second, pointed at me, and smiled.
My life was complete!

What I DIDN’T know was as that was happening, the cameras had turned on me and I became larger than life on all the big screens around the tent.
That was humiliating, I wanted to dig a hole and crawl in.
I’m not big screen material but it’s fun to remember now.

When it was over I was in after-glow and we were both hungry.

We figured that was a good sign.

We were comin’ around, Montezuma was headin’ on out.

A plate of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy sounded wonderful and it was…..for maybe ten minutes and then, we both went running.

About an hour later, we both decided we could handle some ice cream.

It was late and most of Reno’s little eateries were closed for the night.

We stood in a line for 30 minutes in the only place we found open.
When we placed our order we were told they were out of ice cream.

How can you be out of ice cream?

There was no one behind us in line and the waitress felt sorry for us so she offered to run over to the next restaurant which was closed but she had the key.
She knew they had ice cream.
She brought back two soup bowls of melted vanilla ice cream with hard, stringy, chewy, un-hot fudge plopped on top.
We retreated to our room with the bowls of floating ice cream and gave up.

And “the scoots” as my girls refer to that condition, continued.

We were $100 ahead when we went to bed that night, something that doesn’t usually happen when we go to Reno to play.

We were up early the next morning and anxious to head for home.

It was New Year’s Eve.

I thought something was wrong when I looked over at the window and couldn’t see out until I realized I was looking at a snow storm, a blizzard.

I could see nothing but snow.

I tried eating a Biscotti and a cup of hot chocolate…..nope!

We loaded our luggage and decided to do a little shopping before we left but it was too early and not much was open so we decided it was just time to go home.

We made it as far as Boomtown which is about 15 minutes outside of Reno, when the freeway signs began flashing CHAINS REQUIRED.
We were in a rental and we had no chains.
We stopped at a store for chains, they didn’t have our size.
We were told to go to K-Mart in Reno so…..back to Reno we went.
The kid helping us couldn’t find our size.
Lobo finally found a set marked $59 but the clerk only charged us $39.
(Ka-ching…..$40 out of $100 winnings)

Before we left K-mart, we did another restroom visit…..guess why?

Then, back on the road.

Chains are installed all along the freeway in winter.
We pulled up to the first spot.
I had no idea that the guys who put chains on tires were called Chain Monkeys.
I don’t know if that’s an insult or not.
I didn’t know then and I still don’t know now but one of those monkeys told us that he found a cut line by the back wheel and it could be a brake line.
GREAT!!!!!
He installed the chains, (ka-ching…..a $10 tip) and away we went in a blizzard snow storm at 35 miles per hour.

We really couldn’t see anything other than headlights coming at us and barely that.

The chains banged up against the sides of the car and that just didn’t seem right.
Lobo worried there was gonna be damage to the paint.
We kept driving, at a crawling speed, we really couldn’t see.
My Michigan readers/friends know what I’m talkin’ about!

We each had half a bottle of water, I suggested we ration because the driver seemed to be guzzling his and I was not gonna share mine.
I warned him, even reminded him of The Donner Party but, he didn’t care, kept taking big gulps.
It’s not unusual on that road coming from Reno in the winter to be stopped and in a line for hours waiting for the plows to clear the road.
I threatened that if I ended up having to share my water, he was gonna pay…..BIG TIME!

We’d been so absorbed with what was going on outside that for a little while, we forgot what was going on inside our Montazuma ravaged bodies.

What if we needed to stop?
The snow on the sides of the road was way higher than the car.
It was like driving in a snow tunnel.
There was no way we could get off the road, we were stuck.
I visualized a commode carved from the snow.
If necessary, that would have to do!

The chains got louder and louder and seemed to bang harder and harder.
I knew nothing of chained-up tires but I didn’t think they were suppose to do that.

A lit-up sign ahead said CHAINS INSTALLED HERE.

We pulled over and asked Mr Monkey to please check our chains.
He took a look and said they were the wrong size and said that just ahead they were not required so it would be OK to take them off.

Irritated at the entire chain thing, Lobo told him to “take the damn things off” and keep ‘em.
I thought the chains should go with us but nope the chain monkey got them and a $10 tip besides.
(Ka-ching…..down another $10)

Off in the blizzard we went.
The snow was blinding.

The plowed roads filled up with new snow as fast as the trucks could remove it.

A few miles later, the radio said CHAINS were required and we were approaching a check point.

Now I was a little pissed!

Lobo admited he may have made a little error in his chain decision, but only MAY HAVE….. not for sure.

I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers and toes and chanted some Gypsy Voodoo words and we slid slowly to a stop at the checkpoint shack.
Lobo rolled the window down just enough to communicate, told the Inspector guy we were headed for Monterey and asked did we need chains?
Mr Inspector leaned down and spoke through the cracked open window.
We didn’t need chains because we had four-wheel drive.

Four-wheel drive?
We’d gone through all that chain crap and that rental had four-wheel drive?
OK, I punched the driver!

We moved slowly from the shack and back on to the freeway with the rest of the crawling cars.

We ended up smack behind a snow plow.
Lobo decided the smart thing to do was stay right behind him in his tracks.

We stayed behind the plow for a short time but it was going faster than we were comfortable with and so we lost him.
The snow was so deep and it was snowing so hard that we didn’t realize we’d drifted on to the wrong side of the street.
And the barely glowing headlights of a car coming smack at us demanded immediate action.

Thinking he was Tom Cruise in an action adventure movie, and never taking his eyes off the oncoming car, Lobo said two words…..”HANG ON”…..and I did!

He turned the wheel like a race car driver takin’ a curve and we plunged over the top of a pile of snow on to the median and with a huge thud, and some sliding, we were back on the right side of the street.

I’d seen that move in the movies and obviously so had he!

That actually put a smile on his face.
He thanked his Michigan roots which HE said gave him instinctual skills at snow driving.

At that moment, he looked like a satisifed, proud rooster behind the wheel.
Me?
I felt like a clucking, nervous chicken ready to lay a couple eggs.

And then…..it was over.

We were home.

The snow was gone.

It was foggy but we could handle fog.

We went for an ocean walk…..no chains required.

The Montezuma’s Revenge?

We ended up going to the Clinic 3 days in a row.
We pulled down and bended over for injections every morning to help with the symptoms.

We were sick for thirteen days.

Every time I hear a Lionel song, I drift backwards and it’s Mexico, Montezuma and the scoots!

Oh, and the keys?

They were in Mexico!