Part IV: And home is just a place to hang your head
Day Seven: Friday
Got up at the crack of dawn to catch our 9:30 a.m. flight outta Denver. OK, we didn’t get up that early but the Denver airport is considerably busier than the one back home. Got loaded into the Super Shuttle and the guy puts on a homemade CD of oldies. Starts off with The Monkees’ “Daydream Believer,” so I figure the day is off to a good start. Sadly, it began to skip on “MacArthur Park.”
Did I mention the Denver airport is busy? There was quite a line at security but it moved and we got through with plenty of time to find our gate and stare out the big windows. The plane left more or less on time and we wound up in the next-to-last row of the plane. As long as we’re together I don’t care. The terrible, horrible pain of descent — which I escaped when landing in Denver — came back with a vengeance when we landed in St. Louis. OK, it wasn’t terribly bad but it ruined me for the rest of the day.
Epilogue: Saturday
Normally the story ends on Friday, but I didn’t want to leave you hanging on my phone situation. Plus, I need a photo and I didn’t take any at the airport so I’ll toss in a few words about Saturday night so maybe Carrie will “like” this.
Saturday morning I got all my papers and boxes together and decided to make one last attempt at dealing with customer service myself before turning it over to the people at Best Buy Mobile. The first lady was nice and vowed she’d have my phone connected before we were through. She said it enough times that I figured she was either telling the truth or reading a script.
She asked many questions – many of which I could not answer. (What 4-digit pass code?) We went round and round for about a half hour before being cut off. I call again. I get a new person. He also vows to get me reconnected. We go round and round and round before finally giving up. It seems the sim card in my phone doesn’t match the one on the box. Or something. I drive to the mall. I go to the manager at Best Buy Mobile and ask him if he has an hour to take care of my problem.
He says “not on a Saturday” but is confident he can fix it in much less time. I tell him I think it’s a sim card issue but he says it can’t be that. He screws around on a computer, then calls some guy. Informs me I have no money in my account. I assure him I do. He eventually takes out the sim card and puts a new one in. Voila! It works.
I walk out the door and call my wife to make sure it’s working. I then have a couple of Fritos burritos at the Taco Bell in the food court then catch the 2 p.m. matinée of “Suicide Squad.”
That night was New Town Reggae Fest, my favorite free thing to do in summer in St. Louis. Usually it’s just us, Yellow and Tim, but this year we conned other friends to join us by making it a birthday party. Yellow reserved us an outdoor table at a nearby restaurant.
It was hard, but after many years I bequeathed my Spider-Mon T-shirt to Andrew, since it didn’t fit me anymore. Laurie was aghast. She’s hated that T-shirt since the day I bought it at a LawyerCon in Key West. She didn’t think it was appropriate for Andrew to wear. When we got to the restaurant, a small boy was wearing the exact same T-shirt.
We order dinner and wait. While we’re waiting, Andrew — who has been Absolutely Perfect all week — decides to have a seizure. I turn to my left and there’s A shaking and L is holding him. Eventually he comes down from the shakes to that dull-eyed, glassy look. I always kinda appreciate it when he has a seizure in front of people we know. It’s good for people to experience my life firsthand. Autism: Not Just a Day at the Park.
Laurie immediately wants to go home. It was a pretty minor seizure so I figure he’ll be fine after a few minutes. Besides, there’s no way he’s walking to the car in this condition and I’m not carrying him. So we wait. Sure enough within a half-hour he was back to his giggly self. We ate our fill then walked back to the car to either go home or get the lawn chairs. Andrew voted to stay and listen to music, so we rejoined the gang on the lawn for a lovely night of reggae.
The RROY REPORT 