Productive Weekend 2: a layover in Mytrle Beach

I feel my sister has indirectly challenged me to a blog. For those loyal readers of "It's Quiet Now. What Do You Say?" you probably know what I'm talking about...

I sure have had a few good airport layovers in my day. Thirteen hours in Amsterdam and 14 hours in Frankfurt come to mind. However there is a layover that trumps them all: 8 hours at Myrtle Beach Airport.

We had gone to Myrtle Beach on account of arson. My friends and I had pulled one of our historic pranks, which I'm sure all of you readers know about (the one involving napalm). Our parents had found out about it, of course, because my friends and I had the worst luck. They had given up trying to discipline us. There was really nothing they could do anymore. So they resorted to their last option: forced family vacation. My best pal was whisked off to Connecticut for deep sea fishing and I was shipped to Mytrle Beach for rest and relaxation.

It ended up being one of the best vacations ever. We sat on the beach, made use of the lazy river, and read as many books as possible. I remember I read Survivor, by Chuck Palahniuk, The Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal. Looking back on it, that is pretty heavy stuff for a 15 year old. I do remember one night the moon was out, shaped like a crescent, and the sea was sparkling like I had never seen before. Anyways, that was pretty much all there was to the vacation.

When it came time to leave, we packed our bags, checked out of our hotel, and dropped off our rental car. This would come back to bite us as we got to the airport and realized our plane was 8 hours delayed. It wouldn't have been a big deal if we were in a bigger airport or still had our car, but there was literally nothing to do. Mytrle Beach Airport is like Toledo Express.

The airport was completely empty except for the people flying on our plane. The people in the airport consisted of us, a small Persian family from Dearborn, MI, and a rather large extended family of Middle Eastern descent. I remember my sister was reading Harry Potter and was talking to one of the Persian boys about it. I think his name was Yousef.

I was bored out of my mind. I had nothing to say to Yousef because I was anti-Harry Potter at this time. Also I had finished all my books so I couldn't read. Then suddenly I reached in my back pack and pulled out my frisbee. A rush of inspiration came over me like I had never felt before...

I was a dirty hippy at the time. Long nappy hair, bushy sideburns, barefoot, and sporting a Grateful Dead T-shirt. I gathered Yousef and his brother, along with my frisbee, and we walked over to the giant family. I motioned to all of their kids that I had a frisbee, and soon they all smiled, jumped to their feet and followed me. I remember their was one young lady around my age whom I thought was cute. We ended up chatting online for a while; nothing ever came of it though.

The Persian boys, the Middle Easterners, and I found a large open space and started an ultimate frisbee game that Mytrle Beach Airport had never seen before. When we got tired of this I introduced them to footbag (Hacky Sack for all you mainstreamers). I flirted with the cute girl and met all her brothers and sisters and eventually her cousins, parents, aunts, and uncles.

The pack and I explored all of Mytrle Beach airport, went to places we weren't supposed to go, and eventually played hide-and-go seek. The 8 hours were the fastest 8 hours of my life. When it came time to board the plane, the pack and I got on reluctantly, because we knew we would probably never see each other again. We said our goodbyes, took our seats with our respective families, and held tight as we made our non-stop flight to Toledo Express.

The vacation would prove to become legendary within my family as a time when I arrived at a turning point. I managed to stay out of trouble for the rest of the summer. But as for the rest of my life, well, that's another story...