When we checked into our hotel on Friday, we were told that a shuttle service would be available to take us to and from the concert on Saturday night. This was good news because we've had bad luck getting transportation back from the concert in the past. It is inconvenient, to say the least, to take a car and try to park near the arena because of all the other cars trying to do the same thing. The majority of the parking lots are filled with partying Parrotheads in RVs so there isn't much parking anyway.
Last year, we took a cab to the concert and asked the cabbie for a phone number to call afterwards so we could get a ride back. He apparently gave us his personal cell number instead of the cab company's main number. We spent about thirty minutes trying to call him and getting pushed straight to voice mail. We finally called our hotel and got some help getting a cab called out and ended up waiting almost an hour in some chilly weather. Trying to avoid that same fate this year, we signed up with the shuttle service at the hotel.
When we signed up, we were told that our shuttle bus would take us to the concert and would then wait on us to return afterwards. We were sold on the idea that our shuttle would not be taking any passengers except for our group since this would theoretically mean that we wouldn't have to wait on the shuttle to drop off other people before picking us up for the return trip to the hotel. If only it had gone that smoothly.
We were told to meet the shuttle in front of the hotel at 5:25 for a 5:30 departure. We were there on time and the four of us (Dale, Carol, the Tiki Gal and me) squeezed into the back seat of a fifteen passenger van. Once all the seats were filled except for the driver's seat, we noticed that there were still a few people standing at the door of the van trying to get in. The driver poked his head in the door and counted us. There were fourteen people in the fifteen passenger van. He looked a bit confused, checked his list of expected passengers, then poked his head back in the van and counted us all again. Apparently, he didn't like the way the numbers were adding up so he grabbed the guy who signed us up for the shuttle service earlier in the day. This guy then poked his head in the door and counted us yet again. We thought this was pretty amusing, to say the least. The driver and the sign-up guy then conferred for a few minutes. The driver then stuck his head back in the door and - looking at our group in the back seat - asked if we could squeeze in to let the other folks on. Now we are not large people but we are all (more or less) full sized adults. We were already packed into a seat no bigger than a normal bench in a full sized SUV. In order to squeeze in any more, we would have had to learn more about Dale and Carol - and they about us - then any of us probably cared to know. We politely told the driver that we would not be squeezing any more, thank you very much.
Since the extra people weren't getting in our van, the manager led them away. I hope they made it to the concert. As the rest of this story will show, I'm not positive that they did.
The driver climbed into the fifteen passenger van bringing us up to a total of fifteen people, and off we went. On the way, Carol mentioned that some hoop earrings she bought at Sam Moon earlier in the day had spring loaded clasps instead of the pierced ear clasp that she had expected. I had threatened to wear some pirate-like hoop earrings with my dew rag earlier so the girls decided it would be fun to put Carol's hoop earring on me and take a picture to send to my daughter. Of course, the Tiki Gal told my daughter that I had gotten my ear pierced. These are the things we do for fun - we try to embarrass our children as often as possible. I am quite good at it, by the way.
The driver told us his name was Aziz and announced his mobile phone number so that we could contact him after the concert if we had any problems. After he had announced his number twice, a lady near the front of the van said "What was your number again?" Aziz patiently gave his number again. She then tried to repeat just the area code and had two of the three digits wrong. He repeated the phone number again. And again. And again. She was apparently in full margarita mode already. A few minutes later, Aziz's phone rang. When he answered a lady just in front of us in the van said "Hi Aziz. It's me. Just wanted to make sure this was the right number." We all thought this was really funny. Even Aziz.
We arrived at the stadium without further incident and Aziz let us off the van at a corner and told us he would pick us up at the same spot after the concert. We all believed him too, which means Aziz has a future in politics.
After the concert ended we made our way through the throngs back to our pickup point. Most of our fellow passengers were there but neither Aziz nor the van was anywhere to be seen. We waited patiently and the rest of the passengers arrived but Aziz still had not. Finally, Dale called Aziz to find out what was going on. Aziz said he was on the way and would be there shortly. Again, we believed him proving that Aziz will be a member of congress some day. After thirty minutes of waiting, Aziz called Dale and asked if we had gotten on a shuttle yet. We thought this was a strange question since we were supposed to be on Aziz’s shuttle and, obviously, we were not with Aziz. Dale informed him that we were still standing beside the road waiting to be picked up. Aziz again said he would be there shortly. We were beginning to doubt Aziz at this point.
Finally, after forty-five minutes of waiting, Aziz pulls up in his van. We jumped on quickly and went directly to the back seat. Not surprisingly, the fifteen passenger van filled up with fourteen passengers but there were still people waiting to get on. How did that work out? We brought fourteen people in the van, we went to the concert, and after the concert there were more than fourteen people waiting to go back to the hotel. Did some of those people reproduce while in the concert? This is not such a far-fetched idea, actually. As I mentioned in my previous post, there are dirty dancing lunch ladies on the prowl at Jimmy Buffett concerts. Anything is possible.
Aziz again asked if someone could allow these extra people to squeeze in. Some folks in the front with much more generous hearts than ours did actually pile on top of each other to allow everyone to get in the van. Aziz then pulled forward about ten feet and promptly stopped because a train was blocking the road. After the train had passed, Aziz drove across the train tracks, pulled a highly illegal u-turn, drove up on the sidewalk with the right front tire, and then drove back down the road in the other direction.
During the drive back to the hotel, Aziz told us that one of the other shuttle drivers had only picked up two of his ten passengers after the concert so Aziz was trying to get the rest of the ten back to the hotel and that was why we had extra people in our van. I guess you don’t need to understand the number line to be a shuttle driver.
Also during the drive back to the hotel, a really creepy looking guy began asking all of us if we wanted to go to a nearby bar when we got back to the hotel. One of my rules of thumb is that I don’t go to bars with creepy looking guys that I met on a shuttle so when Aziz stopped and let the creepy guy and his potential victims… uh, new friends, off at the bar, we stayed on and were finally dropped off at the hotel. Needless to say, Aziz did not get a tip.
I would chalk this up to the Charlie Brown curse but someone let a little secret slip the next morning at breakfast so I now know the real story. Stay tuned for a conspiracy so shocking that Geraldo Rivera may have to stop digging for Jimmy Hoffa in order to break it open.
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