Last week, I wrote about how Ben had taken his first flight alone to visit Dennis in DC with the goal of meeting us in Florida for a sparring tournament. After spending a week hanging out together, they began the two day drive to Ft. Lauderdale, where they would meet me, Jack and Miranda: My BFF/Jack’s sparring training partner. Jack and Miranda were both fighting in the AAU Taekwondo National Championships!
Planes & Automobiles, but No Trains
While Dennis and Ben started the 15 hour drive to Ft. Lauderdale, Jack, Miranda and I flew from Colorado. We arrived that evening to an extremely ill-mannered shuttle driver who apparently had a long day just as we did. He was rude and overbearing and wouldn’t let me get a word in either on the phone when we called, or in person, after he arrived. Because of this, Jack and Miranda got to see a side of me they’d never seen before. I’m usually over-the-top nice to service people even if they’re having a bad day. My first ten years of employment were in the service industry! But I gave him such an earful that my sweet Jack apologized to the guy while they were loading our bags. Trust me, though, that guy did NOT deserve it.
I always say that sparring tournaments bring out the worst in me, especially when we travel. And absolutely when we’re traveling without Dennis, which has been the case the majority of the time since we became a long distance family (LDF). These tournaments never go according to plan. On top of that, I’m always worried about getting to where we need to be, having everything required, and trying to minimize the stress from the boys. So I’d planned to forget this happened with the shuttle driver, and we’d start fresh tomorrow. It was easy, because I felt better after giving him an earful, anyway.
Fresh start
The super-friendly hotel desk clerk who greeted us helped with our fresh, new start. We got a good night’s sleep, and had until 3 pm the next day for Jack to weigh in for the tournament. But when we woke up, he went down to the hotel fitness center to check his weight on their scale. His ankles and feet were swollen from the flight, and he was five pounds over for his weight class. This was a problem, because, technically, he should fight in the weight class for which he qualified and registered. For him, that’s the light-heavy division. Some sparring tournaments will let you switch the day of the fight for a hefty fee; however, the next weight class up is heavyweight, and those kids are huge because the maximum weight is unlimited! And this mom does NOT want him fighting those guys yet.
This has actually been an issue before, since he tends to hover around the top of his weight class. At the Puerto Rico Open Tournament, his coach helped him lose a few pounds hours before weigh-in by working him really, really hard. In fact, at every sparring tournament we see many athletes running, sometimes in their full gear, on weigh-in day, because they need to drop a few pounds before getting on the scale. But since his coach hadn’t yet made it to Florida, it was up to Jack to work it off, Miranda to help him, and me to stress about it.
Dennis and Ben
Dennis and Ben were back on the road after staying the night in Savannah, Georgia, and would arrive at our Florida hotel sometime that evening.
Ben sent me updates throughout the day, mostly him complaining about Dennis’s audio book being too loud and annoying. I’d also get pictures of what they had for lunch. He enjoyed seeing the swamp lands they would pass, and would send me pictures of those and unique, old trees. Otherwise, their drive was pretty uneventful.
Working up a sweat
Jack ate a light breakfast, and then he and Miranda worked out in the fitness center for a while as he tried to shed weight. Her weigh-in wasn’t until the following day, and her fight the day after. The scale wasn’t moving, so he threw on a sweatshirt and went outside in the 90 degree/90% humidity to run. After an hour or so, he was able to drop a pound or two, but we decided to head down to the tournament venue to continue working out.
I grabbed a dry change of clothes that he could change into for the official weigh-in, and we Ubered down to the convention center. While they continued to work out, I tried to buy spectator passes that Dennis, Ben and I would need for the two days of events. That’s when I saw the signs that they would only take cash for the tickets. Who carries cash anymore? Not me, and it’s usually not an issue. But, of course, today it is.
There were ATMs in the convention center, so I found one and tried to withdraw cash. While my transaction seemed to work, no cash came out. No problem, I thought. I saw another ATM near the escalator. So I tried it. This time, my transaction was declined. I assumed it was because I didn’t set a travel alert with my bank before the trip, so they (or their algorithms) were being cautious.
Since Jack and Miranda were still working out, I had a few hours to kill. I remembered passing a branch of our bank on the drive there, so I checked a map and it was only about a mile away. So I decided to walk there. It was a hot, humid, sweaty walk, and when I arrived at the bank, the line was to the door. But there were ATMs in the lobby, so I tried those. No luck.
Banks are the worst
While waiting in line for an eternity, I remembered that, in the past, I’ve successfully set a travel alert online. Using the bank app on my phone, I logged in and set the travel alert. It gave me a message that it was successful, and should take effect immediately. I got out of the slow-moving line (so stupid of me) and tried the ATM again. Declined. Since it gave me a number to call, I stepped outside to call it.
The hotline was completely automated. No matter how many times I yelled, “REPRESENTATIVE!” into the phone, there were no humans to be found. But I made it to the option to set travel plans, and again, it told me it had successfully updated and should take effect immediately. I went back inside to try the ATM, but it was declined again.
Feeling completely defeated, I got back into line in time to see the woman who was originally directly in front of me, leaving the bank having completed her banking needs. The bank was also down two tellers than my first time in line. Outstanding.
Breathe in, Breathe out...
I opened a game of Wordscapes on my phone to distract myself, and mustered all the patience I could, all the while wondering how many pounds Jack had lost since I left.
FINALLY making it to the counter, I was met by the friendliest man Florida has to offer, and told him about my crazy morning. He was sympathetic, and best of all, was able to pull up my account and withdraw cash. When I asked him if my ATM/debit card would work for me from this point on, he couldn’t say for certain, and suggested I speak with one of the banking representatives reserved for, who knows, non-counter needs? It’s been so long since I’ve been inside a bank, I honestly don’t know how they work anymore. I declined and said I’ll take my cash and my chances.
It started to rain by that point, so I ordered an Uber back to the convention center instead of walking again. Jack was still one pound over, and wanted to change into the dry change of clothes I brought him to see how much that would help. As it turned out, as we were leaving the hotel, I grabbed two shirts instead of a shirt and a pair of shorts, so he didn’t even have a complete set of dry clothes for the official weigh in. UGH!
even more craziness...
He needed a dry change of clothes, and Miranda remembered that we had passed a TJ Maxx on the way to the convention center. It was certainly closer than going all the way back to the hotel, so I called another Uber.
Sometimes when I’m stressed, and especially when I’m nervous, I develop a case of diarrhea of the mouth. I literally cannot stop talking, and it’s coming out at 90 miles per hour. The poor Uber driver got to hear every detail of the weigh-in and lack of dry clothes, and he suggested a Ross Dress-for-Less that was even closer than TJ Maxx. He dropped me off, I ran directly to the Men’s section and found the lightest shirt and shortest shorts I could find. The Ross gods were smiling down upon me as the cashier lines were short and aplenty. Naturally, the pair of shorts I picked up didn’t have a tag, but the cashier quickly found a similar pair to scan. Using cash to pay so I wouldn’t have to press my luck with my debit card, I was back in an Uber headed towards the venue!
I made it back to the convention center where Jack was still working hard to get that last pound off. He put on the new, dry clothes from Ross and headed for the test scale. Hallelujah, it showed him weighing a mere half pound under his max weight! We still weren’t out of the woods, though, because that’s just the test scale. It’s not usually calibrated to the official scale, but we only had about an hour left to weigh in and decided to take our chances.
He did it!
The universe decided I’d had enough stress for the day, and the official scale showed the exact same weight as the test scale (half a pound under!), so Jack was golden! He was able to get his official registration packet, his ring number and fight times. I was able to procure spectator tickets with this morning’s hard-earned cash, and we could finally eat some food.
We walked to Gilbert’s 17th Street Grill, a very highly rated burger place within walking distance. We practically had the place to ourselves, where some fantastic food served by a delightfully engaging young man made us forget about our stressful morning. We headed back to the hotel with some gigantic desserts in tow, just in time for Dennis and Ben to meet us.
When I sat down to write this post, I planned for it to be about the entire trip to Florida, including the sparring tournament and the quality time we were able to spend together as a family. But as I recalled that first day, the day of the weigh-in, I remembered every incredible detail and wondered, “Did it really happen that way?” All it took was a quick check of my panicked text messages throughout the day (which were actually hilarious, in hindsight) to confirm. So weigh-in day gets a dedicated post.
Trust me, the rest of the trip ran much more smoothly, and you can read about it, and how Jack did at the tournament, in the next post!
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Wow!Where do you all find the energy.Great pictures!
Lots of coffee! Plus staying in to recover while they would go swimming in the evening.
Wow! I love your post and pictures. I can picture everything happening, except you yelling at anybody, because you have such a gift with words. I can’t wait to hear about your next phase of this trip.
Yeah, that was definitely out of character for me! Jack was mortified, but Dennis was proud when we told him. He explained to Jack that no one, especially women, should put up with that. My delivery was definitely not in the spirit of taekwondo 😀
My anxiety went through the roof while reading this! I know we would do anything for our kiddos, but sometimes, don’t you just want to run and hide?
Yes, there are absolutely times that I want to run and hide 😀 But Jack worked so hard to get there, I was determined to do my best to make it work out. It helped that Gilbert’s had Yuengling on tap!