Tampa Bay Take Down
“She's just finding a way to make this trip all about her,” Jolyn says with a big laugh. I was sitting on the sidewalk shivering as the paramedic attempted to stick my on the inside of my arm. It was a little after seven a.m. and I had been throwing up since four. We had only gotten to Tampa less than 12 hours earlier and fire and rescue was confused why the 9-1-1 dispatcher called them instead of an ambulance.
“The lady on the other end was being such a bitch! She kept asking for the address, but I don’t know the address to this fucken complex. Then I gave her the address of this smoothie bar, and the cunt goes, ‘Missy, if you don’t give me a real address then I’m not sending you nobody.’ – I thought we were being pranked!” Alexa was pacing back and forth rubbing her forehead. She’s already pretty tightly wound so I already had an idea of the spinning that was probably going on beyond her eyes.
The three of us were in Tampa to visit one of our other girlfriends, Angelina. Due to the long weekend, our schedules lined up with work and classes, seemed like the perfect time to take a mini vacation together. A girl’s trip, if I may. Besides, all our Irish skins were all craving that lobster coating.
Just the morning earlier, prior to this morning of chaos, we endured the most outrageous route to get to Tampa by plane, entitling us to almost a full ten hours of traveling… to FLORIDA…. From NEW YORK! What should have been a simple two-hour plane ride, maybe even less, turned into an entire day spent drinking at airport bars only because we didn’t want to spend that extra sixty dollars each on a non-stop flight. Nope, would rather save that sixty for tequila sodas.
First: 9 a.m. flight out of JFK. Arrive in Miami around 11:30 a.m.
Second: Sit in Miami airport for what should have only been five hours but turned into 8 because of delays.
Third: Realize your carry-on bag, the one that got checked at the gate, went all the way down to baggage claim instead of your connecting flight.
Fourth: Go get your bag. Go get your shit together. Go back through security. Find your friends.
Fifth: Continue looking for your friends for another fifteen minutes because they have their phones still on airplane mode and all calls are still going to voicemail.
Third: Once you find friends, and get a little too drunk at a bar, realize you that the gate you’re near, actually isn’t yours. Yours is on the other side of the airport.
Fourth: Almost miss your connecting flight because you’re a dumb dyslexic bitch who can’t read a simple ticket.
Fifth: Get on 45-minute flight to ORLANDO
Sixth: Arrive in Orlando, stop at the Disney store and pick up some goofy sour worms, call uber to take you to friend’s apartment complex in Tampa.
Seventh: Drive another hour to Tampa.
It wasn’t till almost two a.m. when we got to her apartment. What. The. Fuck.
Going to bed that night, we were planning on having a relaxing morning and afternoon out by the pool. But my stomach had different plans for us all.
As 4 a.m. rolled around, I woke up nauseous, the same type of nausea I had when I got home from Europe just last summer. My mother and I spent her birthday in New Milford hospital. I slept in the ER for a couple hours as they pumped my body with banana bags and anti-nausea medication. Now, it was like my body was experiencing déjà vu. I was laying with my head over the toilet seat when I heard a knock on the door around 5:30.
“Maria? That you in there?” It was Angelina. I looked at the time on my phone and felt my body deflate.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I muttered weakly.
“Do you need any help?” she asked concerned. “I have clinical at 6:30, I gotta get ready.”
“Yeah, okay. Hold on one sec.” I pulled my body up by my legs remained paralyzed to the cold tile floor. I reached for the door handle and Ange in the bathroom before plopping myself back to the floor. Ange washed up and got ready as I laid, feeling the tiny beads of sweat run from my forehead to my nose, then drip onto her porcelain floor.
I was still in that position once she left. After trying to drink some water and deeming the task impossible, I waddled into the living room where Jolyn and Alexa were sleeping. The time was now 7:30. Thankfully, Jolyn was already awake.
“Hey… I think I need to go to the ER.” I said with my body and shoulders folded over. I shivered standing there, my knees pressed together and the corner of my eyes drooping to the corners.
As soon as the words left my mouth, Alexa eyes opened. Her maternal instincts were something I knew I could rely on. Frankly, I’m surprised she didn’t wake up sooner. We had shared an air mattress that night, one with a hole that surely deflated a little every hour. By the time I woke up the first time, parts of me were touching the floor below. Every time I got up or laid back down, I’d hear her body smack to the floor like some kind of seesaw.
“Do you want me to call and Uber or should I call 9-1-1?” asked Alexa.
“We could try an Uber, but I don’t know if I can wait that—” most of my sentences kept cutting off because of the occurring gag I was experiencing every four minutes.
“I’ll just call an ambulance. It’ll be faster. Ubers are all twenty minutes out anyways. Jolyn, pack a bag. Maria, where are your shoes. Wait, where are my shoes. Did you bring another pair of shoes? Oh my God where’s my goddamn phone?!”
Jolyn and I looked at each other for a couple seconds, then back at Alexa.
“What?” She asks.
“It’s in your hand, Lex,” Jolyn said calmly, as if she was trying to tiptoe around a sleeping dragon.
We walk to the sidewalk, and I sit down on the curb; my head hanging over a plastic target bag, the receipt still inside. Hope she doesn’t need to return anything; I think to myself. I’m still dry heaving into the bag when I hear Alexa getting heated over the phone.
“Well, we literally just got here not even 24 hours ago!... We’re at Seaside apartment complex, right outside on the sidewalk… What do you mean you need the apartment number?... Can’t you just track my phone or something or send someone to our general area to find us?” Alexa’s voice keeps growing louder and louder. I notice the early morning joggers with headphone on begin to turn their heads and look our way. Though, I’m not sure if it’s because they can hear her, or they’re just looking at the “hungover” college chick who “probably can’t hold her alcohol.”
I wish I could write this whole experience off as one of my bad hangovers. I wish I could simply black it on the tequila. But that wasn’t the case.
A few minutes later, we notice a fire truck coming our way. A man in the passenger seat wearing a baseball cap and navy-blue tee shirt sticks his arm out the window and waves at us.
“Did they send fucken fire and rescue instead of a goddamn ambulance?” asked Jolyn.
“I swear, I didn’t ask for firemen. But maybe, we can look at this as some sort of silver lining, right?” You had to appreciate her optimisms.
As the truck pulled up to us and stopped right at the edge of the curb, three men hopped out of the truck. Jolyn began pacing back and forth, now slightly panicked and attempting to get a hold of Angelina on the phone. Too bad she wasn’t looking where she stepped.
“Um, Jolyn. You got dog shit on your shoe?” Alexa says with a massive grin across her face.
“Oh, my goodness, what do I do?” She asks waving her foot in the air.
“Getting that thing out of my face should be number one,” I said with my head still hanging over the bag. The firemen started to laugh a little too.
“All right sweetie, I’m going to poke you with this needle real fast, then you should feel a whole lot better,” the fireman said.
“If that’s all I needed to do I would have poked her over an hour ago,” Alexa exclaims, assisting Jolyn by holder her arm as one of the other men hand her gauze to clean her shoes. Her shoe has taken president over me, though I can’t really blame her.
“Alright, we’ve got a spot for you in the back of the truck, let’s get you to the ER,” the man said.
“Can we come with?” Alexa asks.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have enough room, but feel free to meet us there,” he replied.
About an hour later, Jolyn and Alexa walked into my corner space of the ER. They were drinking some beautiful looking smoothies. I on the other hand, was experience rancid dry mouth as I was pushing with fluids through my veins instead of down my gullet.
“Did you bring me one?”
They look at each other, then back at me.
“Yeah, I knew the answer. Just thought you’d feel bad if I asked,” I said with a smirk.
By the time everything was said and done, we were all walking out of the ER around 11:30 that morning. With no car and no Angelina still, we had no choice but to walk 5 blocks to the nearest pharmacy to pick up my anti-nausea medication. But at least we were still able to make it to the pool by noon.
