Jersey Shore Chronicles, Day 5
Jersey Shore Chronicles, Day 5 - Wednesday
Bill and I get up early to go to WaterWorks, the water park he’s been going to for years. It’s pretty big, but not quite as big as the water park we always drove by on our way through Wisconsin when I was little. I come to understand why Topher calls it “WedgieWorks”. Gah.
I realize that I am very old and very wimpy. There is one waterslide that goes STRAIGHT DOWN for probably fifty feet. A couple of years ago, I would have been on that in a minute. This time, just looking at it makes me sick to my stomach, and I ask Bill if we can’t just go on the ride where you sit in your tube and float around the outside of the park. This turns out to be my favorite ride of all.
After the waterpark, we go out for Lobster. A little backstory: The first time I ever met Bill’s family was the 4th of July weekend, 1999. This was our one-year anniversary, and they flew us out to Maryland for the weekend. The big important thing was that I had never had crab - and so the whole family taught me to properly crack open and eat a crab, while sitting at a newspaper-covered picnic table on a beach. Bill’s mom even bought me my own crab mallet. There are several pictures of me pretending to bite the crab in the face, etc etc. So, THIS time, two years later, we’re at this nice restaurant, all wearing our lobster bibs, and the waiter (Corey, who just graduated from Rutgers with a degree in Economics) brings me my lobster, with a big wooden bowl on top. I stare at the tail peeking out. I have a brief moment of “oh my god, what the hell am I doing”, but it passes. Until Bill’s dad says “Well, go ahead, take its hat off!” and I lift the bowl. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but for someone who has never eaten lobster before, removing that bowl and seeing all the legs and claws REACHING UP AT ME was a vaguely horrifying experience. (Before the lobster delivery, I had even braved the “steamers”, and so I was feeling pretty tough. No longer.) Bill’s father takes a picture of me staring at the lobster with a look of abject terror on my face.
Bill (under extreme durress from his family) begins to teach me how to properly disembowel this beast. However, I am one step ahead of him - I crack the tail, and the whole thing falls neatly onto my plate in one piece. Ta da! I eat the claws, I suck the meat out of the legs, I kick that lobster’s LITTLE RED ASS all over NEW JERSEY! Bill’s mom keeps saying “oh, Alicia, you’re such a good sport”, and the whole time I’m thinking “They’re taking me out for a really expensive meal, and I’m the one who’s getting praised for being a good sport?” For the record, lobster is officially my new favorite food. It’s DAMN good.
At this point, we rush back to the house… my watch is back on my wrist, and I catch up with time. We pack in about thirty seconds, and spring out the door. Matt and Alex are driving us back to the airport, and we need plenty of time to get lost in.
1:30 pm EST
We hop into the YakeMobile once again, and we’re off! I’m asleep within five minutes… the heat and the sun have sucked out any energy I have left.
3:15 pm EST
We are out of the car and checking our baggage. It’s amazing how quickly you can get somewhere when you don’t get lost a single time.
3:20 pm EST
We realize we don’t have Bill’s ticket. We panic. I mean, REALLY panic (or maybe that’s just me.) We go to wait in line.
3:30 pm EST
The nice lady behind the counter tells us that Bill’s ticket was really an e-ticket. I just got a paper version of mine because I got the frequent flier miles. Ah HA, we say, and breathe a sigh of relief. She prints our boarding passes and we are on our way. We get “I can’t believe it’s yogurt”, and sodas, and french fries, and sit at our gate.
5:00 pm EST
Our flight takes off, and we say goodbye to Phila Int’l Airport. Bill and I try to figure out which cell phone plan we’re going to get activated with his birthday checks.
7:02 pm MST
We land in Denver, and have just enough time to get subs and hop back on another plane. We forget to get gum, which stinks, since our ears are still plugged from the flight from Seattle to Chicago five days earlier.
7:59 pm MST
We take off from Denver… we fly through a LOT of turbulence (the butt end of a thunderstorm, a million clouds). The seatbelt light is on for the first 45 minutes of the flight, and Bill gets really sick. I don’t feel so good either.
9:45 pm PST
We have never been so glad to get off a plane in our whole lives. We feel like ASS. We are tired and cranky and sick and so very, very glad to be back on solid ground. Benlau is waiting for us at the airport with Zoe, our beloved car (whom he had been babysitting). We get the hell out of Dodge, and …
10:45 pm PST
when we get home, the dogs are so glad to see us that they practically herniate. They have, of course, eaten the notes that Julie and Jaye (the dogsitting goddesses) have left us. Finally, finally, we sleep, in our very own beds.