It’s been a long, cold winter in Connecticut and recently Bob and I made the decision to spend money we don’t have and go to Florida for a week.

Around 5:00 the night before our Jet Blue flight was scheduled to leave White Plains airport, I logged on to the airline website only to discover our flight was cancelled. Since Jet Blue only gives you the option of being notified of any flight changes TWO HOURS before your departure time we would not have known had I not decided to check. It had snowed heavily that day in Westchester and apparently White Plains airport can’t handle the weather the way the New York City airports can.

Panic ensued.

After being on hold for 20 minutes with Jet Blue, I found myself speaking with a very nice woman who, it became quickly apparent, had no clue as to what she was doing.

Not good.

I should have hung up THEN and redialed Jet Blue for another operator.

But I didn’t. She was too nice.

She appeared to be having trouble even accessing Jet Blue flights on her computer; I had to tell her there was a flight the next day out of JFK that we would like to get on. When she informed me that there were seats on that flight but because of some new system she couldn’t book us and would need to TRANSFER us to the “change desk” I knew exactly what I would hear next. I thanked her for her help and then I heard it: DIAL TONE. I had been disconnected.

After another 30 minutes on hold with Jet Blue, Bob (it was HIS turn now) spoke with another woman who informed us that the flight we had been told had seats available was now FULL. We now had no other option but to lose a day and fly out the following morning. We would have to eat one night of our hotel and all likely due to the incompetence of the nice lady I had spoken with at Jet Blue and had opted not to hang up on.

Incidently, an e-mail to Jet Blue written by me that night in an angry and somewhat drunken stupor has gone unanswered to date.

So we got there a day late and a few hundred dollars short.

Our time on Sanibel Island was wonderful; unfortunately, although sunny, the weather barely topped 60. A very gusty wind meant we never put on bathing suits but instead spent a few hours on the beach fully dressed in layers: jeans, sweatshirts, jackets, hats, sneakers. Even in layers we could only stand to stay about an hour before we were just too cold and felt sort of ridiculous. We came home as pale as we were when we left Connecticut.

But it was beautiful.

We visited the wildlife refuge several times and each time saw different birds (many photos are on my Facebook page and soon will be on my website too: www.pamlandry.com…I’ve also included a couple of pictures here) including the stunning and bizarre bright pink roseate spoonbills (sort of a cross between a flamingo and a duck-billed platypus) lots of osprey, herons and egrets.

And from the “small world” department, mid-week I received a message through Facebook (gotta love the wireless internet) from our friends Rick and Peg who live in Greenwich. They had found out through a mutual friend that we were on Sanibel. We all live in Connecticut yet we can’t ever manage to get together.

So we had dinner together in Florida.

The last evening of our adventure on Sanibel could have ended very badly and it had nothing to do with a nice but clueless woman from Jet Blue.

See, by week’s end we were running low on toilet paper and instead of bothering the owner of the property, we just took a roll from the supply shed in the backyard. This turned out to be a mistake as damp toilet paper just doesn’t do “the job”.

Perhaps we might put it in the microwave, briefly, to dry it out?

I am not sure at what point we started to smell something burning; turns out Bob had put the toilet paper roll in the microwave but instead of setting it for under a minute he had inadvertently set it for FIVE MINUTES. Our toilet paper was BURNING. Bob grabbed it and, looking like a cartoon character, juggled the smoldering roll out to the backyard. Now our apartment smelled like something was on fire; miraculously the smoke alarm did NOT go off. We opened windows to air out the joint. A few hours later the property owner called us to ask if everything was okay; some of the other guests had called him concerned that something was on fire.

No we just overcooked our toilet paper. Everything’s fine.

Fortunately he laughed and said his biggest concern was that we would go home and tell people he provides toilet paper that needs to be microwaved before use.

No sir you just rent your apartments to stupid people from Connecticut.

The next morning Bob fetched the well-done roll of toilet paper from the yard. It was barely recognizable as a roll of toilet paper. We left beautiful Sanibel with the faint smell of burning in the air of our apartment and a good laugh at something that could have been a complete disaster but, lucky for us, simply became story fodder.

As far as we know there is no warrant out for our arrest in Florida.

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