Key West

The Chief and I recently went to Key West for vacation.  His company ran a promotion for the sales people, the winners won the trip and because he is the Vice President, he got to go too.  Lucky me!!  After spending four months in this miserable freezing weather, I was desperate to get on a plane (despite my airplane stresses) and get somewhere warm.  

If you have never been to Key West, you must go.  The water is beautiful.  The weather is beautiful.  What did this people do to deserve God gracing them with 75 degree weather in the middle of winter?  

This is an area full of interesting people.  The Chief and I spent some time with just the two of us, and we also spent time with other couples in the group.  Something that is popular in this area is “Sunset Celebration.”  Every night people can go to the tip of the island to watch the sunset.  This is like a circus on steroids.  There are hypnotizing acts as you walk the strip.  Just walking by, you get dragged into the act that is being performed.  There are cats walking on tightropes.  There are dogs performing tricks that would put an acrobat to shame.  There are 50 year old men sitting on top of ten foot unicycles.  There are men juggling knives on fire while walking across a tight rope that is dangerous inches away from the angry ocean waves.  There was a woman, younger than me, standing with a guitar pouring out her despair through the soulful mixture of her guitar and her raspy voice.  She played with an open guitar case at her feet with a few dollars thrown in (probably by herself), hoping for more to make rent...or maybe even dinner.  Laughing crowds surround each act hoping desperately to be amazed, as promised.  Most of these crowds are tourist, only there for a few days of vacation.  All the performers are residents of this area.  This is their life.  This is how they make a living.  It all depends on what they have rehearsed or repeated night after night, week after week, year after year.  It works, the entertainment was exactly that.  Entertainment.  The crowds laugh at the jokes, the clap at the dangerous accomplishments of the backflip on a tightropes, they scream with enthusiasm as the performer informs them to (so they can draw in a bigger crowd).  This is an adult fight for attention.  

My favorite act (that I didn't get on camera).  An old man playing a guitar.  His sidekick, a filthy golden retriever in desperate need of a bottle of shampoo.  As the old man plays, the dog walks around and takes money from the onlookers hands.  If you are holding a dollar bill, the dog walks up, takes the dollar from your hand, walks over to the bucket in front of the guitar player, and drops the money in.  Then he goes back and looks for more money.  The dog doesn’t have to be signaled to do this.  He simply spots the dollar like a mouse spots a piece of cheese.  At one point he went and collected four dollars from different suckers, before walking to the bucket.  He didn’t drop a single dollar.  People see this, and start pulling out dollars for a chance at the dirty pup to come take their money.  Genius.  Pure Genius. 

When the Chief asked what I wanted to do on this trip, I immediately said jet ski.  I had been on one before, and it was one of the most exciting things I had ever done.  So we happen to be walking by the pool when he noticed a group of work people signing up for a group tour.  So we walked up and joined them.  The guide explained that we would ride them around the whole island, and it would be about a two hour excursion.  Trying to keep from jumping up and down with excitement, I said, “Hell ya! Let’s do that!”  We put our name on the clipboard and were told to be back there at 10AM the next morning.  

I want to remind those of you that haven’t read about my fear of sharks, how deathly afraid I am of them.  I won’t even step foot in the ocean.  Crazy that I would consider going on a jet ski?  Well, I don’t think so, because to me I am separated from the water, and I am moving quickly.  It isn’t like I am sitting on it dangling my toes in the water.  My feet are safely planted on the floor of the jet ski.  No part of me is touching the water.  That doesn’t mean I didn’t toss and turn all night with nervousness adrenaline rushing through my mind, because I assure you, I didn’t get my beauty sleep.  

The next morning, I put on my two piece with a light summer dress over it.  We walked down to the water to see our group gathering and chatting.  They walk us over to sign the paperwork (probably saying I won’t sue them if a shark takes a bite out of my arm).   Then they tell us to head around the corner (on the other side of the dock) to our jet skis (after grabbing our life jackets).  I practically skip over there and then stop dead in my tracks when I see the jet skis are a football field away from me.  In.  The.  Ocean.  I panic.  How the hell am I supposed to get on it, if it is way out there?  Our group of 10 heads into the water.  I am just standing there like an idiot.  This is NOT what I signed up for.  If I wanted to take a leisure swim in the ocean I would have done that on my own time, not sign my damn life away!  I see fins teasing me as they pop up around my jet ski.  I am now the only person standing in the sand.  Everyone else is swimming to their jet ski.  The Chief must have seen me, because he was no longer at the head of the group, he was coming back to the beach towards me.  I could see in his eyes he was pleading with me to come.  I immediately starting crying.  He holds out his hand and says, “Come on, you can do this.”  I slowly comes towards him as the water splashes up on my bare feet.  I was trembling with fear as I follow him in, clutching him from behind.  There I was on his back, trying to climb up him like a cat as he trudged deeper and deeper in.  Once the water was sloshing precariously under his chin, he says between clenched teeth, “Babe, your going to have to swim or your going to drown me.  It’s only another ten feet.”  As my mind is spitting out images of bloody water, I let go and frantically swim to the jet ski.  It seemed like it took me another five minutes to reach it, as I am swimming I’m cursing myself for ever thinking I could do this.  What was I thinking?  Why didn’t it occur to me that the jet ski would be in the middle of the ocean for me to swim to?  Do you KNOW what can happen in 10 feet?  There are sharks swimming under me now, I can feel their movement as they weave through the water.  They smell fear.  I tried to bring what the Chief always says to the front of my mind, “They don’t want a toothpick when they can eat a steak.”  I looked over and he is still swimming.  I am secretly thanking God that he hasn’t quite reached his weight loss goal.  I’m so going to hell.  He has just risked his life helping me get to my jet ski, and here I am, hoping the shark eats him first because he is the steak.  

We were both lucky.  The sharks decided neither of us were worth the time.  

Later, after the tour, we were laying on the beach as the next tour group were heading into the water.  I noticed a woman standing on the waters edge.  I felt sorry for her, knowing she probably assumed, like me, that they would start the jet skis in the sand.  She waited and waited.  I started to wonder if she was going to back out.  Then I hear one of the jet skis fire up.  I noticed the tour guide was on it.  Do you know what that dipstick did?  He drove her jet ski up on the sand.  I turned and looked at the Chief, wondering if he had seen this.  He looks directly at me and says, “Oops.”