Charleston—lovely, historic, and perched on a harbor—the perfect place for a meltdown.
E booked us into a nice hotel with a beautiful view and shuttles that run back and forth to the heart of the historic district. Because we arrived in the middle of the day, we decided to go visit the aquarium and then explore the city on foot later in the afternoon when things cooled off.
Except in Charleston, things never do cool off. It was hotter than hot, and I’m just not used to intense heat and humidity anymore.
Let’s start my tale of woe with the hotel van, which was packed to capacity with tourists and had broken air conditioning. It felt like steam was coming off our skin. The aquarium was welcome relief from the elements, but when we stepped outside afterwards, it felt even hotter than it had when we’d gone in.
I was wearing a linen skirt and cotton t-shirt and toting a quart of water with me. We kept crossing streets looking for shady sidewalks, pausing to read all the placards describing the history of the 19th century houses lining the streets. Eventually we reached the market and I’d had more than enough of walking and was not at all interested in shopping. I parked my butt on a bench.
I was sweating so much I felt rivulets running down between my shoulder blades and soaking into my waistband. My bra felt disgusting and clammy against my skin and the front of my orange t-shirt was soaked from chest to stomach with a bold and distinctive hour glass shaped sweat stain with two half moons of sweat under my sleeves. I’m sure the back of my shirt looked equally wet. Good lord, this is the quantity of sweat that is only socially acceptable on athletes and laborers. I felt humiliated by it as women in heels cruised by in sundresses and deep tans.
The hotel shuttle runs on a two-hour cycle, so we waited a long time for it to come back around and then a large group of us squeezed into it like riders on a Japanese train. By then, I was beyond miserable, beyond hot, beyond any shred of interest in seeing even one more square inch of Charleston.
Back at the hotel, I stripped off my clothes, parked in front of the air conditioning vent and declared I was DONE being a tourist in Charleston in July. There was no way I was setting foot outside the hotel or getting back into their stupid hot-box of a shuttle.
This morning E and the kiddos loaded up to go tour Fort Sumter, home of the first battle of the Civil War. After they left, I spent 35 minutes looking for my sandal in our hotel room. Yes, my sandal.
How can you lose a sandal a hotel room? Good question! We’ve been living out of suitcases and shopping bags for three weeks now and despite our best efforts, everything is in disarray. My sunglasses are missing (another reason I hated walking around yesterday), I can’t find my aspirin (needed for my heart), there are piles of funky laundry next to all our suitcases, stinky flip flops on the floor, and wet swimsuits spread out to dry. It’s like a high-class tenement.
E-Grrrl has balled up her clothes and shoved them into her suitcase. Mr. A’s suitcase isn’t much better. After opening up closets and drawers, tearing the beds apart, and crawling around on my hands and knees on the floor searching for my bloody sandal, I finally decided to look through ALL the suitcases one more time. I finally found my sandal wrapped in a clump of clothes in E-Grrrl’s suitcase.
After spending 45 minutes looking for the sandal, I didn’t get to the hotel restaurant for breakfast until after 10 a.m. Because I was by myself, they seated me over in the lounge area, where I had to wait for 20 minutes for a server to notice me and come over to the table.
When I went to pay for my meal, I discovered that I had had some chocolate in my purse yesterday and the 100 degree heat reduced it completely to a liquid state. Y’all, it looked just like someone had taken an enormous crap in my handbag. Everything covered in a sticky brown mess.
I’m looking on the bright side—at least my purse smells good.
July 21, 2007