FINDING A HONEYMOON

At some point earlier in our relationship, we worked out travel plans for a future time, when our wealth had grown, and worldly travel had simply become our way of life. This involved creating individual lists of top-ten travel destinations, then comparing them and creating a master list, based on our separate rankings. Since our wealth had still not achieved that level by the time of our engagement, we continued to talk about where we could go to fill our free time. Due mostly to having an Eyewitness Travel Guide for Thailand that wonderfully displayed the color and adventure of that country, Thailand topped our joint list.

Fortunately, I had accumulated enough SkyMiles over the course of my membership to cover two round-trip coach tickets to Bangkok. Membership has its privileges. Even better, since it was the rainy season in Thailand, we could afford most of the nicer hotels. Thai food is so tasty, and we could buy tons of beautiful things with our wedding cash.

The perfect trip would last ten days, departing Sunday, after the wedding, and returning Thursday, the following week. Ten days should be enough to see everything, shop, and enjoy ourselves. We would need some time to recover from the twenty-four-hour trip home, before returning to our fantastically enjoyable and overcompensating jobs on the following Monday. Never stop dreaming kids.

Not one of the privileges of membership is an easy way to book your international rewards flight. When you call the mile-redemption hotline, if you are not booking on a Delta direct flight, you are eventually transferred to the international partner desk. This single desk apparently sits in a hangar at some regional airstrip in Central America, where prop-engine planes are busily being tuned up in the background. You are quickly informed that all eligible seats are open to SkyMiles members booking twelve months in advance, and any request, say three months out, for a weekend flight generates mild chuckles, as the service-person states, “I have to check out the other carriers systems manually,” and goes to refresh his coffee. Eventually, I learned that, to have a SkyMiles honeymoon, our choices were Atlanta or the Bahamas via two Tuesday red-eyes.

“I have not toiled for five years at grocery stores and gas stations to redeem my miles for a two-hundred-dollar flight,” I stated, as I hung up the phone.

On top of this, we had been receiving daily unsolicited advice from our key advisors, suggesting: “Thailand is so far away.”

Yes it is. I thought you were somewhat far away, but I still hear your voice.

“I think you will be tired.”

That is why we will choose a luxury resort, to be pampered and rested.

“It’s rainy, and you don’t speak the language.”

This reduces the chances of us being bothered.

“I’ve heard (location) is nice”—or “(person) said (other people) went to (location) for their honeymoon and said it was wonderful.”

We did consider the bus tour of New England’s soap makers, but alas, they were all booked. Surprisingly, hearing how tired you are going to be becomes tiring.

Let me say that no single person was to blame for the abundance of incoming information. The typical advice-giving process follows this pattern across several people.

1.      Why don’t I call and see how the bride is doing. It will only take a minute.

2.      Oh, that is how she is doing. Why don’t I offer her some advice on subject A?

3.      She wasn’t very receptive to my advice on subject A. I wonder if she has considered subject B.

4.      She didn’t like that either. Maybe I should tell her about my problems, so she doesn’t feel alone in her difficulty.

5.      I feel better. Have you talked to Person #2 about subject A? I have too. This is what she said. I figure it would make better sense if I told it to you again.

6.      I should call back because I forgot to mention my thoughts on subject C.

7.      They don’t seem to be answering their phone. I better e-mail the advice to make sure they get my thoughts on subject C in time to make a decision next month.

8.      I wonder if they got my e-mail. I better call and go over it with them. Did I remember to tell you what Person #2 said about subject A?

9.      I’m The MOB. I do what I want.

Each person calls to help the bride in her stressful time. Each person gives his or her advice and reviews the advice from other people. It’s very nice of everyone. However, some cases are worse than others (see step 9).

The bride, on the other hand, takes calls from more than one person, and in each call, she receives advice that may or may not be productive, in terms of how she could make everyone happy. In addition, she must recount the same wedding-related events to numerous people and reenact any phone conversation that addressed similar topics just a short while ago. Then she recaps everything for the groom’s listening pleasure.

I’m sorry. This was about the honeymoon planning, correct?

The forces of advice, budget, and time constraints caused us to reduce the size of our global honeymoon radar. It was essential that we flee the country to a place where some correspondence still arrived on horseback; phones were considered modern luxuries; and the natives would not speak English and, therefore, would be unable to provide us with advice. Various spots in Europe were considered, but there was too much to see there. We needed a locale that had a place to sleep and a place to eat—and not much after that. Canada was too cold, which left us with the Caribbean and surrounding areas.

As we now knew, Delta couldn’t get us anywhere but Atlanta, unless we had booked the honeymoon before the engagement, which is the way it should have been. I obviously knew beforehand exactly how everything was going to turn out and what our wedding date would be. Surely, I could have planned the honeymoon and then asked her to marry me. Heck, I don’t see why I couldn’t have planned the whole wedding ahead of time. I have an eye for flair and a sense of the dramatic. I could have selected child names and started college funds, prognosticated our tax returns for the next five years, and filed adoption papers in case my sperm weren’t motivated by the baby-making process. I could have assembled a standing army, invaded Belize, established a tourism-friendly monarchy, and had a throne waiting for her answer. Sometimes, in retrospect, I am greatly saddened by my underachievement.

In the Caribbean, there are many isles of intrigue. They vary in size, language, beach style, and affordability. This vast array of options forced us into a trip to Barnes & Noble. At this candy store for those with a literary sweet tooth, we could sit and explore the Travel section for the ultimate honeymoon spot (subject to terms and conditions). This time included a lot of “Ooh, I want to go here” and “Ooh, I can get a massage there.” This is the magical time of day, where money is no object, and the imagery of you on the white sandy beach skirting the crystal blue water, holding hands and in love, is so clear.

“We should just move there,” she said, pointing to yet another beautiful beach.

“I think we should visit a few before deciding on one to move to,” I replied.

Why do I try and be practical, even in the daydream portion of the day? I am not sure. If I invade Belize and find out a week later that you prefer Curacao, I’m in a tough situation, because I’m going to need to raise a navy to get over there.

“And we could open a petting zoo,” she continued on, unflustered by practicality.

“And have our private jet bring needy schoolchildren down for field trips from the US,” I added. I may not always be smart, but I am a quick learner.

“I like it!” she exclaimed, as I fueled the daydream fire.

This continued for an hour or so at the store. We found many wonderful places. Only afterward do you come home to Expedia, the dream wrecker. Why must you put a price on our happiness?

During this time, we were advised to look into all-inclusive resorts, because we wouldn’t want to think about finding and paying for restaurants every night or carry a wallet or purse around, since post-wedding thinking and planning should be kept to a minimum. The hard part about booking an all-inclusive resort was trying to quantify the amount of gluttonous excess you can put yourself through over the course of a week. It seemed the price of the all-inclusive aspect of an all-inclusive resort was about $100 a day.

“Can you eat forty dollars’ worth of food a day?” I asked Christa.

I figured the easiest way to divide the food was by a ratio of weight.

“I don’t know. Do you think I can eat forty dollars’ worth of food? Do you think I can eat like a pig? Do you think I eat like a pig? Do you think I eat too much? Do you think I’m fat? Do you think I’m a fat, ugly bride?” she rattled off.

“Sweetie, no. It was a conceptual, quantitative question.” I tried to calm her.

“Oh, so you don’t think I’m a fat, ugly bride. That doesn’t mean you think I’m a beautiful bride,” she replied.

“You are beautiful, and I would love you no matter what your daily food consumption was.”

The real lesson here is: never mix emotions and mathematics. They’re like orange juice and toothpaste; shouldn’t be in the same room or used within twenty minutes of one another.

So remember—when you hear, “Do I look fat?”—the correct answer is: “You are the most glorious beauty I have ever laid eyes on.” No math, and state a positive, instead of negating a negative.

An incorrect answer would be: “If you think you are. You could reduce your diet by two hundred calories a day—which is 10 percent of the recommended two thousand calories—by eating two bites less at each meal, given my estimation of the size of your mouth.”

This response is wrong on many levels. The first sentence implies that you see her as fat, but you really don’t care how she looks. The next sentence is a literal death sentence. It includes math, while also implying that she eats too much and has a big mouth. If this sentence ever escapes your lips, just shoot yourself. It will be easier that way.

At this point, we decided to see the travel agent Angie recommended. We were hoping for some magic to get us to paradise at a reasonable cost. This was like starting over at the bookstore, reviewing all the package brochures, seeing pretty pictures, and then learning the too high prices. But there was hope. A couple of all-inclusive options had a $99-flight deal, when packaged together.

“Tell us about this Punta Cana in the Dominican,” we said.

“It is beautiful, if you stay on the resort. The resort property is surrounded by a high razor-wire fence, and they have some armed guards on patrol. There really is no reason to go outside,” she replied.

It sounded like a minimum-security prison or perhaps a fundamentalist religious retreat. If you go off the yellow brick road or landscaped resort grounds, in this case, you risk being attacked by a legion of flying monkeys with nothing better to do than run up excessive charges on your Visa at the local produce market. We passed on this option.

“We were considering the ABC islands, since they are out of the hurricane belt. Do you have anything to those?” we asked.

After some consultation with the magic box of answers on her desk, she said, “You would either have to leave Bloomington about 4:30 a.m. or fly out Monday, and there is no special price. Have you considered Mexico? I have a flight that doesn’t leave until early Sunday afternoon and goes directly to Cancun. The resort I am thinking of for you is about forty-five minutes south of Cancun, in the Riviera Maya area.”

Mexico, land of the painted donkey and pushy sales people, welcomes you. Our experiences with Mexico had consisted of day trips across the border to Tijuana from San Diego. I remembered them in the following way:

“Senor, would you like a picture with a Mexican zebra? It is very rare,” the street corner salesman said.

“I see the donkey you have painted stripes on, and I am not impressed.” I tried to move on.

“He doesn’t bite. His name is Friendly Donkey,” he persisted.

“Why did you name your Mexican zebra Friendly Donkey?” I had found the catch.

“Because he is friendly, and he doesn’t bite. Look, I pet him.” He tried to draw sympathy for the donkey.

“We just had our picture taken with the Mexican giraffe a block over, and we need to save some film, because we heard there is a miniature T. rex down the street that looks like a chicken.”

This was not the environment we were looking to spend our honeymoon in, where we head into Senor Frogs for upscale cuisine, while children are shuttled in to sell us roses or Chiclet gum.

We were assured that Riviera Maya was as far from Tijuana as we could possibly go in Mexico. The travel agent had been to the resort next door and had nothing but good things to say, letting us know that if Tijuana was our only impression of Mexico, we were in for a very pleasant surprise. She also told us that, although close to Cancun, the atmosphere was much more relaxed, and we weren’t going to find ourselves in the middle of a spring break crowd. Since it was September, I tended to agree with her. This would be a place where we could relax. The real selling point for me was that, with the $99 flight, the total cost of this package was less than most of the resorts we had looked at around the Caribbean, exclusive of the flight.

We had a twenty-four-hour hold put on it, since we had the last two seats priced at $99. Just another example of the “book now, else it might be gone” sales pitch we got from every other service we contracted. A couple of hours spent on Expedia that night couldn’t do us any better. We pledged we would get to Thailand when we knew we could enjoy it, but for now, we needed a honeymoon, and the only other option our budget could handle was a road trip to Memphis. The next day, we confirmed our reservation and opted for the trip insurance, just in case.

Every day, until about three days before the wedding, we religiously went to weather.com. Almost every day, the conditions in Cancun were “ninety-five degrees, feels like one-oh-four,” and way off to the east, was a tropical storm named Ivan. Each day it strengthened, and each day its projected eye moved closer. This bastard was mean. It was wreaking havoc across the Caribbean, hitting almost every destination we had considered. A week out, the Yucatan Peninsula was still in its sights.

My apologies to the southern United States, but we were rooting for Ivan to head northward and avoid our honeymoon destination. I know you were probably doing something similar and rooting for a Mexican landfall. Finally, about five days before the wedding, north it went. Our honeymoon was saved! Now that you know us better, wasn’t this for the best?

WAIT! NOOOO! Now the remnants of Ivan were heading towards Indiana and were expected to be there sometime on Saturday, our wedding Saturday! We had saved our honeymoon but ruined our wedding day. Stop! Turn back! Why did you listen to us? God, Mother Nature, whoever had such a cruel sense of humor. I can overeat in any weather, but I can’t make eternal photographic wedding memories in even a slight drizzle. Please go back to where you came from. I relinquish the throne of Belize. Take all my worldly possessions, my Xbox, my uniquely stylish wardrobe. Just save me from a life under an eternal rain cloud, haunted by the memories of a wedding gone soggy.

And, upon my desk chair, I had given myself unto the Lord in hopes of a rain reprieve, and He asked but for one thing in return: “Watch the cursing.” And for the throne to Belize, which he said wasn’t mine to begin with.

I said, “Hell, yeah, I’ll watch the cursing.” And the rain continued to move northward.
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival