Philadelphia Bitch……

We flew into Philadelphia in Jacks’ misguided attempt to reduce the costs of the holiday. This is the story…

Plane 2 hours late into Gatwick. Boarded 3 hours late, took off after 2 hours on the stand. US Air had kindly re-booked our onward Orlando flight – I say kindly because several others were informed of an impending hotel stay.

Very nice plane – great entertainment system. Watched Lord of the Rings (the third one) – What a dull bastard film, perhaps its translation to the airline seat back screen was not the best, but it killed over 3 hours of the flight. Transatlantic flights do not contain a lot of scenery, apart from Greenland. Landed 19:45 US time. Went through US immigration in 5 minutes (yes 5 minutes). The guy looked like, and was built like a Marine. But he was friendly and courteous. By his side was the a book called “Jihad”, although I can’t remember the authors name all I could think of was what an odd, or indeed very apt choice of reading that would be for an Immigration officer.

Then we went through the next lot of Security for the internal flight to Orlando. That is where the bitch was. Ugly as fuck, with horrific wriy gingerish hair and thick black framed glasses. My assumption is she was one of the Kwik Fit Fitter type dykes – the sort of dyke that want’s to look like and be like a man. Butch is an understatement. I went through the screening device and bleeped, as per usual (this always happens to me – perhaps I have an artificial limb I’m unaware of). So this dumb Bitch asks me to remove my watch and go again. Another bleep. Hmm. Must be my keys….well I had them in my pocket, so into the tray they went. Another attempt, another bleep. Then she started….”OK Buddy (yep really), that’s once too often, go stand in the pen” I was pointed to a separate penned off area. “Don’t talk to anybody, don’t touch anything” came the screeching voice. A very polite guy came over and started to run the wand over me. It bleeped at my belt, so I removed that. It bleeped at my inhaler, so in the tray with that! It bleeped at a packet of Gaviscon tablets in my shirt pocket. Even the security guy laughed and said “Jeez, any more we should know about” . My response was “I didn’t know I had this much mate!”.

At this point though the Bitch had got GMD to remove loads of bits as well and then she “penned” teenager. Baby had yet to go through, but was suddenly confronted by her 3 closest relatives being penned for extra security. Then Bitch started shouting at my security guy “He’s only got 3 tickets”. She kept shouting this until I finally decided to give her some back. You see, Baby was upset and becoming visibly distraught because Bitch wouldn’t let GMD back to console her. Teenager was also visibly upset now as she was given the wand treatment.

“I’ve got 4 tickets and 4 passports” I shouted

“He’s only got 3 tickets” she shouted again

“FOUR TICKETS, FOUR FUCKING PASSPORTS” I shouted. Alarm flashed over GMD’s eyes, but I had calculated that we were through immigration and were effectively in. Then my security guy butted in.

“He’s got 4 tickets, and 4 passports and 4 boarding passes”

“….uuuh well he only showed me three” said Bitch. But the Humble Pie Lorry had pulled up and was carving her a big slice at this point. I resisted the temptation to give the finger.

Yeah, you stupid bitch. I tried to smuggle someone into the country and your immigration colleague didn’t reconcile the forms and passports to the number of people!

Dumb Bitch then.

Actually Dumb Stupid Ignorant Ugly Bitch.

This did taint our initial impression of America. This was further dented by the 4 hour delay in our onward flight thanks to Tropical Storm Alex (the first named one of the year apparently). Philadelphia Airport is like Victoria Coach Station on the internal side. A dump. Hard seats, the coffee shops all closed at 10. Nowhere to go, nothing to do for four fucking hours. When we finally left for Orlando it was 1 in the morning. We flew above and to the side of Alex which was spectacular to see night, illuminated as it was by copious amounts of lightning. 2 hours of flight allowed me to calm down and accept gracefully that it was no-ones fault but the weather. We finally arrived at the villa at 5:30 in the morning instead of 8:00 the previous evening as expected. I had been on the go for 32 hours non-stop.

A day at the marvellous villa by the pool and an excursion to a Ponderosa, all you can eat for next to fuck all restaurant, and a visit to the amazing local Wal-Mart, which made our local Asda/Wal-Mart look like a corner shop soothed the stresses and within hours we were all back to normal and ready to go. You can buy guns (the hunting type) at Wal-Mart and car tyres there…yep they have an aisle for tyres. I had visions of people doing their weekly/monthly shop and JohnBoy BillyBob turning to his wife (the undoubtedly lovely Mary-Jane) and saying in that deep southern Floridian drawl

“Honey, we need some tyres for the pick up, hold on while I get another truck” (they call supermarket trolleys, trucks!).

So, I went out the cynic and came back having had a wonderful time and being converted to the way of life. This has put a spanner in the works of our planned holiday home purchase in France. We are now looking at the long term villa in Florida option. France is favourite because of its comparative nearness....but who knows. Next post will complete my America experience with the nightmare of coming home and a few other bits and pieces of observations. Then its back to normal, otherwise this becomes the blog equivalent of sitting through my holiday slides.

More later, GrocerJack