It seems that as I get older, I become more and more afraid of flying. When I was younger, flying never phased me. I am a transient soul, and the thrill of travel quelled any fear of death I had in me in regards to aircraft. These days, however, that phobia seems to be getting stronger and stronger. Oh, the thrill of travel still resides, but at this point, it seems in constant battle with the fear of flying. Thankfully, the thrill continually wins out.

My plane from Virginia to Kansas was due to depart at 7 AM in the morning. Mind you, 7 AM in the morning tends to be my bedtime, but I made it alright. Karen, whose mother is a pilot, has never flown commercial, and was constantly expressing worries and fears, mostly about me losing my luggage. I assured her that I have flown a lot of times, and have not once lost my luggage. I, on the other hand, was concerned about the size of the plane I would be on. I have had bad experiences in the past with little airports, as that usually entails little airplanes, which ALWAYS means big turbulence. She assured me that Newport News hosts a major international airport.

There were exactly four gates in the airport, and no plane seated over 12.

The flight was rough, to say the least.

But I got there in one piece.

I met up with my family. My grandparents, who are the cornerstone of the family and thus all family events revolve around them, live in an upscale retirement home. My grandparents are wealthy, well respected members of the community mind you; this was a nice place. And lucky for us, the retirement home had exactly two guest rooms housed in the basement; 30 bucks a night. My immediate family took both rooms.

The basement was sort of the recreation center of the retirement home. It housed storage, but also the arts and crafts room, a day room, a big dining room that had a 60+ inch TV, and an exercise room that had treadmills, weight machines, a sauna, a hot tub, all of that. What was great was that after about 10 PM, we pretty much had the run of the place (it is a common fact that nobody over 65 is able to stay awake past 10 PM). So while my mother and my 9 year old sister were asleep in their guest room, I would wander about, play around on the exercise equipment, drink beers and watch Conan O’Brian on the gigantor television, whatever I felt like doing. But the whole time, I kept eyeing that hot tub.

The week was pretty busy, though for the most part dull. I found the time to hang out with some old friends, but most of it was spent shuffling around to various familial locales and chatting with old people and less-old people that consider me a fuck up. Fair enough. Your normal family occasion. I had the most fun during the night, when I could drink beer freely and do whatever I liked around that retirement home.

And I kept eyeing that hot tub.

Finally, after about 4 days of this, I said to myself on Christmas night, “fuck it, I want a soak”. I didn’t have a bathing suit with me obviously, but I was drunk and it was nearly 3 AM, so that didn’t stop me. I wrapped a towel around my bare ass, grabbed a 12 pack of beer, and headed for the exercise room. I needed to unwind after a day spent opening box after box of sweaters and dress socks.

The area that housed the hot tub was actually three rooms combined. A room for the exercise equipment, a middle room for aerobics and whatnot, and then a room for the hot tub, sauna, and dressing rooms. The only door to the main hall of the basement was in the middle room, and that door was always open. The lights for these three rooms were shut off after 6, and the only windows to the hall, and thus the only source of light, were in the exercise room. So, I wandered in, set up the hot tub, laid my beer down, closed the door to the hall, took off my towel, stepped in the tub, and proceeded to relax.

It was great. I hadn’t been in a hot tub in awhile, so I was enjoying myself immensely, sipping beer and soaking in the warm jets.

I had been in the hot tub maybe 10 minutes when the door to the aerobics room opened.

Now, at night, there is one security guard, an old black man, who makes rounds maybe once every other hour. I had seen him leave the grounds not four minutes before I set out for the hot tub. But all of a sudden, there he was, in the other room, in plain site of the hot tub. I am not a complete fool, I had planned out my hot tub time for right after he had made his rounds, and I knew that on every other night, it would be a good two hours before he came back.

But apparently, 3 AM on the night of Christmas is a fan-fucking-tastic time for orientation of the new security guards.

So he opened the door, propped it open, flipped on the lights for the aerobics room, and proceeded to shuffle in the 5 other new security guards who were just starting out there. He was giving them a tour, I guess. The old security guard shot me a look, and then proceeded to walk around the aerobics room, giving the new guys tidbits of information about the place and the equipment, as they divided their attention between their mentor and the naked goon in the hot tub in the other room.

I sunk as low in the water as I possibly could.

Being caught in a place where you know you shouldn’t be is pretty embarrassing.

Getting caught naked in a hot tub at a retirement home with a 12 pack of Milwaukee’s Best is another animal entirely.

They didn’t openly acknowledge my presence at first, though it was painfully obvious they were all entirely aware that I was there. The old guard just continued his tour unabated. He showed them the aerobics room, then he went and turned on the lights of the exercise room and talked to them a bit about that.

Then he made his way to the Jacuzzi/sauna room.

At the doorway, he stopped. For the first time, he acknowledged me.

“Are you decent?” was all he asked.

“Ummmmmm. No.” I replied meekly.

He turned the lights on anyway.

I was fucked.

To my surprise however, he didn’t come over. He didn’t call the police. He didn’t lambast or make fun of me. He just continued his orientation.

He pointed out the hot tub without mentioning me to the other 5, he pointed out the sauna, he talked briefly about both, and he took the group into the locker rooms. Oh, they knew I was there. It was impossible not to. I was nude in the hot tub in the dead center of the room. They kept shooting me glances, chuckling under the breath, all that. But nobody said anything to or about me the whole time.

When he was finished with the orientation of the three exercise rooms, the veteran security guard shuffled the group of 5 new guys out of the room, turned off all the lights, and when the orientees were on their way down the hallway, he paused at the doorway and looked over at me.

“Merry Christmas” he said with a grin.

He closed the door behind him and went on his way, leaving me alone and red-faced.

I immediately jumped out of the hot tub, grabbed my towel and my beer, and spent the rest of the week locked in my guestroom.

After a few days, I was on my way home.

The plane ride back was hellish. Bad weather made for bad turbulence, and so during my 3-hour layover at Dulles, I spent most of my time in an airport bar. At some point, a homeless guy asked me for change while I was outside smoking. Instead I brought him inside and bought him a beer. I generally prefer buying booze for the homeless rather then giving them the money outright. You know, so they don’t spend the money on drugs. Just call me Redguard. I would like to tell you the man was honorable and just down on his luck and all that, but he was a fucking nutcase. In any case, a 5 dollar pint is the least I can do to help remedy the oppressive economic structure of our nation.

After an hour, I paid my tab, ignored the crazy homeless guy, and headed for my gate.

And BTW, I did indeed end up losing my luggage.

sorry for missing last week’s update BTW, in case anybody noticed.