Thursday, May 17, 2018
Florida 2018 - Part 1
Florida 2018
It amazes me how many people are able these days to log on to the internet, navigate the maze of hotel and flight sites, get passports, ESTAs, wrestle their young people to an airport and successfully through security without little junior’s game of thrones battle axe setting off the detectors, and yet when faced with a folding toilet door on an aircraft can’t manage the reasonably simple task of opening the fucking thing. Eight people have tried so far, everyone single fucking numb-nutted one of them failing, having apparently ignored the the four foot square sign on the left half of the door proclaiming “push”, the added clue of a hand pictured on it obviously a waste of the artist’s time - as everyone of the fuckers has so far tried to open the door by pulling on a small ashtray on the outside of it (a relic of Soviet times no doubt...) and failing miserably. One woman failed so badly she started to have a little grizzle to herself and started heading back towards her seat before our lovely stewardess, Georgina, took pity on her, placing her hand on the picture of the hand painted on the door, and, as indicated, pushing gently, opening the door for her. Patience of a Saint that girl. And fuck knows how said woman is going to cope driving on the other side of the road, I think her head will explode...
Other than that, our extra legroom seats are wonderful. Eight foot of clear space in front of us, and the generous arse width a 777s seats provide more than make up for being next to the bogs. Until, of course, when mid-flight ennui sets in and everyone, and of course their babes-in-arms, decide that this is a good spot to come and stand to relieve their arse-ache. I keep my legs fully extended, and when one bloke complains that I’m “blocking the standing area” I quietly point out to him that I’ve paid an extra fifty quid for this privilege and he can fuck right off back to his seat if he doesn’t like it. He does...
I must mention George, a great little bloke we met on the flight, with a rather natty dress sense in shark leggings and transformers tops. George in 7 months old and obviously a seasoned traveller. He is also a Gorgeous George as one other small child, a little girl about 14 months old, keeps walking past and giving him the eye. The thing about George is that the for the entire 9hrs 05mins of our flight, he does not sleep a wink. He makes almost no noise, except when his parents nod off, but is almost completely silent, and completely wide awake, for the whole flight. They try a sky cot, they try his own sproingy chair, they try passing him between mum and dad - even I have a go - but the little fucker won’t sleep. His poor mum takes a look at my noise cancelling headphones and says, a tear of remembrance in her eye, “I used to have those, back before...before...”. She then has a quiet cry to herself while I play snap with George.
Tampa, as an airport, has won all sorts of awards including best in the U.S. I have been to a few, including JFK (awful, just god awful), Miami (just no, please no...), Orlando (Kill me now..), and Las Vegas (Fruit Machines in the queue for passport control) and this is rather good. Friendly staff, quickly through immigration, bags already on carousel, car upgrade to a tank, what’s not to love?
We must take a moment to mention The Beast aka a 2018 Ford Expedition XLT (Extra Large Tank), all 5,600lbs and 375bhp of All American Massiveness. I’m 6’2” and need to step on the running boards and use the hand grip to get in. My missus, all 5’ and a fag paper literally has to be helped in. As for getting out, it’s a lottery. We generally try to park near something soft for her to land on, but it’s been a bit touch and go...
It should be pointed out that this car has the same engine as the current Ford GT, which is of course the closest any of us will ever get to that halo car, even though despite the beast’s twin turbos it’s 300bhp shy of that piece of automotive excellence. Despite this, and it’s massive weight, it don’t half shift when you hit the loud pedal. It’s so good through the huge puddles the biblical storms we’ve been having are leaving all over Ft Myers that we now have a new favourite game...
# posted by Bucko! @ 7:27 AM 
